American History Teachers’ Collaborative Reflective Paper

Kristen Buford

Summer 2008

Before this week’s AHTC institute I thought I was pretty well informed about slavery, the slave trade, and how it affected the growth of our country. I am always fascinated with the contributions that African Americans have made in U.S. History that have gone unrecognized.

This is not my first time attending a history institute. Last year I attended a summer institute sponsored by the African American Studies Department at the University of Illinois. This institute left me feeling well informed about African American History beginning with the Slave trade progressing through time to the present. This week I have found that I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew about slavery. I have learned an abundance of information about the pre-civil war slave trade. My knowledge of Slavery during the American Revolution is quite the opposite. I really never thought about the roles African Americans had in the founding of the United States. Until now I never thought about when the “Slavery Debate” began. I have been intrigued all week with the irony of the relationship of slaves and our “Founding Fathers”. It is hard for me to believe that a country that was established because of the desire to break away from the “Enslavement” of Britain, would support the enslavement of someone else! I am puzzled. Why was there such strong support of slavery from those who were fighting for their Independence?

I have learned many astonishing facts, the first being that several of the “Framers” were slave owners. Some of these founding fathers came to disdain slavery over time and became some of our nation’s first abolitionists. Unfortunately those framers would not sacrifice the union for the slave trade. The southern states would not sign the Constitution if slavery was abolished; compromises were made in order to appease both the northern and southern states.

The information I learned this week raised several questions for me. Why did the slave trade last so long? What role did African Americans play in the American Revolution? What relationship did the “framers” have with their slaves? I know that my students would have the same questions and more! For this reason I have decided to use the resources that I received during the AHTC institute and other sources to find out why the Declaration of Independence and Constitution did not free the slaves. The Declaration of Independence is my first primary document.

After an analysis of the Declaration and other information about the time period, I found that Thomas Jefferson considered slavery wrong. He originally wrote a section in the Declaration to abolish the slave trade, but that section was taken out by the rest of the Congress. It was at least a first attempt. The use of this primary document to find out information raised even more questions for me. What was Thomas Jefferson’s original intent? What type of relationship did he have with his own slaves? Were there other framers who owned slaves? If so, who? Were there any framers who were opposed to slavery that did not own slaves? I decided that these questions would be excellent essential questions for my students. I have found that the texts we received this week are a perfect start to an inquiry-based project using primary sources and other texts to find the answer to the essential question. For example, I used the book Thomas Jefferson by Victria Sherrow, and A History of the US from Colonies to Country by Joy Hakim to find out more about Jefferson and his position on slavery. It is this type of research that I plan to do with my students. Much like the DBQ, which I didn’t know existed when I came up with this idea, I plan to create essential questions with or for my students. The students will then use primary sources, books and the World Wide Web to find the answer to their question and make a presentation of their choice: PowerPoint, report, tri-board etc. I think this will be a interactive way for my students to learn information that is relevant, as well as teach them reading skills like inferencing and comprehension.