his question is based on the accompanying documents. The documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise.

In your response, you will be assessed on the following.

• Respond to the prompt with a historically defensible thesis or claim that establishes a line of reasoning.
• Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt.
• Support an argument in response to the prompt using all but one of the documents.
• Use at least one additional piece of specific historical evidence (beyond that found in the documents) relevant to an argument about the prompt.
• For at least three documents, explain how or why the document’s point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience is relevant to an argument.
• Use evidence to corroborate, qualify, or modify an argument that addresses the prompt.

 

Evaluate the extent to which the institution of slavery changed in the period from 1754 to 1850.

 

Document 1

Source: George Washington, advertisement placed in the Maryland Gazette, 1761.

Ran away from [my] Plantation . . . on Dogue Run in Fairfax [Virginia], on the 9th [of this month], the following Negroes. . . . Peros, . . . Jack, . . . Neptune, . . . [and] Cupid. . . .

As they went off without the least Suspicion, Provocation, or Difference with any Body, or the least angry Word or Abuse from their Overseers, tis supposed they will hardly lurk about in the Neighbourhood, but steer some direct Course . . . in Hopes of an Escape. . . .

Whoever apprehends the said Negroes, so that [I] may readily get them, shall have, if taken up in this County, Forty Shillings Reward, beside what the Law allows.

Document 2

Source: Petition from enslaved African Americans in Massachusetts to the British colonial governor, 1774.

[We] apprehend we have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedoms without Being deprived of them by our fellow men, as we are free-born People and have never forfeited this Blessing by any compact or agreement whatever. But we were unjustly dragged . . . and Brought hither to be made slaves for Life in a Christian land. . . .

We therefore Beg your Excellency and Honor . . . that you will accordingly cause an act of the legislature to be passed that we may obtain our Natural right[s], our freedoms, and our children be set at liberty.

Document 3

Source: An Act for the gradual abolition of slavery, passed by the New York state legislature, 1799.

Be it enacted by the people of the state of New York . . . , That any child born of a slave within this State after the fourth day of July next, shall be deemed . . . to be born free: Provided nevertheless that such Child shall be the servant of the legal [owner] of his or her mother until such servant if a male shall arrive at the age of twenty eight years, and if a female at the age of twenty five years.

Such [owner] . . . shall be entitled to the service of such child until he or she shall arrive to the age aforesaid, in the same manner as if such Child had been bound [required] to [be a servant].

Document 4

Source: An Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, law passed by the United States Congress, 1807.

Be it enacted, That from and after the first day of January, [1808], it shall not be lawful to import or bring into the United States or the territories thereof from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, as a slave, or to be held to service or labour.

Document 5

Source: Harriet Jacobs, formerly enslaved African American who escaped from North Carolina, describing in her autobiography events in 1831.

Not far from this time [in 1831] Nat Turner’s insurrection [in Virginia] broke out; and the news threw our town into great commotion. Strange that they [White slaveholders] should be alarmed, when their slaves were so “contented and happy”! . . .

It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who had no negroes of their own. . . . They exulted [rejoiced] in such a chance to exercise a little brief authority, and show their subserviency to the slaveholders, not reflecting that the power which trampled on the colored people also kept themselves in poverty, ignorance, and moral degradation. . . . At night they formed themselves into patrol bands. . . . No two people that had the slightest tinge of color in their faces dared to be seen talking together.

Document 6

Source: Seal of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, an interracial abolitionist group founded in Pennsylvania in 1833.

 

“Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?,” Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers [490], Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Document 7

Source: James Henry Hammond, United States Congressman from South Carolina, speech in the United States House of Representatives, 1836.

In northern latitudes, where no great agricultural staple is produced, . . . there is an accurate division of [workers’] labor; . . . in the higher departments a degree of skill must be attained, [for] which stronger stimulants are necessary than can be ordinarily applied to slaves. . . .

Slavery is said to be an evil. . . . But it is no evil. On the contrary, I believe it to be the greatest of all the great blessings which a kind Providence has bestowed upon our glorious region. For without it, our fertile soil and our [fruitful] climate would have been given to us in vain.