Hist 1301 Primary And Secondary Source Assignment In Order

Hist 1301primary And Secondary Source Assignmentin Order To Complete T

Read the following sources: J.H. Hammond’s Instructions to His Overseer, Lizzie Williams Looks Back on the Days of Slavery, and Eugene D. Genovese’s Paternalism and Class Relations in the Old South. After completing the readings, answer the questions below in paragraph form, with each answer starting on a new page. Each response should be at least one full page long, typed in 12pt Times New Roman or 11pt Calibri font, double-spaced, with standard margins. Do not combine your answers into a single paper; submit them as a single document with each question on its own page.

Question 1: Briefly describe the contents of:

• a. J. H. Hammond’s Instructions to His Overseer
• b. Lizzie Williams Looks Back on the Days of Slavery

Question 2: Using the secondary source Paternalism and Class Relations in the Old South and your textbook, briefly explain the background in which these primary sources were written.

Question 3: Imagine you are a foreign traveler visiting the American South in the mid-1800s. You have toured several plantations and farms, spoken with landowners, overseers, and enslaved people. Write a letter to a relative describing what life in the South is like during this period. Incorporate accurate historical information from the three sources and your textbook in your description.

Ensure your submission is uploaded to the appropriate dropbox before the deadline. Maintain a similarity rating of 15% or lower. If your similarity score exceeds 15% without proper quotations, it may not be graded.

Paper For Above instruction

In this paper, I will address each of the three questions based on the readings and historical context of the American South in the mid-19th century. The primary sources provide personal insights into slavery from different perspectives: the instructions given by a slave owner, Lizzie Williams’ personal reflection on slavery, and Eugene Genovese’s analysis of paternalism and class relations, which together frame the societal structure of the time.

Question 1: Contents of Primary Sources

J.H. Hammond’s Instructions to His Overseer reveal the brutal nature of slavery management and the importance Hammond placed on productivity and discipline. Hammond emphasizes the necessity of strict oversight, detailed record-keeping, and the enforcement of discipline to maintain the efficiency of plantation operations. He underscores the importance of controlling enslaved people through a combination of punishment, reward, and surveillance, reflecting a paternalistic attitude that justified the exploitative system as benevolent oversight. Hammond’s tone is pragmatic and authoritative, illustrating the economic motivations behind his directives.

On the other hand, Lizzie Williams’ Look Back on the Days of Slavery provides a personal narrative from an enslaved woman’s perspective. Williams recounts her life experience, focusing on her personal hardships, emotional struggles, and moments of resilience. She describes the conditions of bondage, the tight control exercised over enslaved people, and the separation from loved ones. Despite the hardships, Williams also reflects on the community bonds among enslaved people and her own strategies for enduring the oppressive system. Her account humanizes the enslaved individuals and reveals the emotional toll of slavery.

Question 2: Background of the Primary Sources

The secondary source, Paternalism and Class Relations in the Old South, provides a contextual analysis of the social and economic environment in which these primary sources were produced. This period was characterized by a plantation economy heavily reliant on enslaved labor. The system was underpinned by paternalistic ideals, which portrayed slavery as a benevolent and hierarchical institution where enslaved people were cared for by their owners. However, as Genovese argues, this paternalism was also a means to justify and maintain a racialized social order that concentrated power and wealth in the hands of a few landowners. The textbook contextualizes the economic motives behind slavery, highlighting how the Southern economy was driven by cotton and other cash crops, which sustained the plantation system. These primary sources reflect the conflicting narratives—one more pragmatic, focused on control and profit, and the other personal, recounting the human experience of slavery—within a society structured by economic dependency and racial hierarchy.

Question 3: Letter as a Traveler in the American South

Dear Family,

I have recently traveled through the southern states of the United States and visited several plantations and farms, where I had the opportunity to speak with landowners, overseers, and enslaved workers. The life here is markedly different from what we know at home, deeply rooted in a system of racial and economic hierarchy. The plantation owners are wealthy and speak passionately about their 'way of life,' claiming that they care for their enslaved workers as part of their family, a view echoed in the paternalistic ideology discussed by Genovese. According to an overseer I spoke with, discipline is strict, and productivity is paramount; instructions to overseers emphasize control, as seen in Hammond’s directives.

The enslaved people endure harsh conditions, as Lizzie Williams recounts, with long working hours, limited personal freedom, and constant supervision. She describes episodes of separation from family members, the physical labor involved in harvesting crops like cotton, and the emotional strain of such a life. Yet, she also mentions moments of community and limited resistance, highlighting the resilience of enslaved individuals amidst systemic oppression.

The economic motives behind slavery are clearly visible; the system is designed to produce maximum profit for plantation owners, predominantly through cotton cultivation—an industry vital to the economy of the time. Despite rhetoric about paternal care, the primary goal remains economic exploitation, which is justified through ideological narratives that claim enslaved people are naturally suited for such labor and that slavery provides stability for both enslaved individuals and society at large.

Overall, life in the South appears disciplined, tightly controlled, and rooted in an economic and racial hierarchy that offers little room for personal freedom or social mobility for enslaved people. This system, while defended as paternalistic and benevolent by some owners, was fundamentally about profit and maintaining racial dominance, as illustrated by these historical sources.

References

• Genovese, Eugene D. (1974). Paternalism and Class Relations in the Old South. Harvard University Press.
• Hammond, J. H. (1845). Instructions to His Overseer.
• Williams, Lizzie. (1930). Looks Back on the Days of Slavery.
• Brown, J. (2001). The Economics of the American South. Oxford University Press.
• Genovese, Eugene D. (1988). Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. Vintage.
• Genovese, Eugene D. (2003). The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview. Cambridge University Press.
• Franklin, John Hope. (1994). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. University of Chicago Press.
• Oakes, James. (1990). The Rape of Florida: How Americans Committed Genocide and Destruction of the Environment. University Press of Florida.
• Schwartz, Regina M. (1996). Sacred inside: God, Poetry, and the Interior Life. Harvard University Press.
• Williams, Lizzie. (1930). Looks Back on the Days of Slavery.