Unit information: Violence and Slavery in the American South in 2019/20

Unit name	Violence and Slavery in the American South
Unit code	HIST20108
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Wallace
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

Slavery in the United States was a ‘peculiar institution’, promoting the racial oppression and economic exploitation of African and American born persons. At the heart of the system was violence. It was was used to subjugate, humiliate, and promote conformity from enslaved persons but also used by them to circumvent slaveholder authority and to challenge the system. This unit locates the concept of ‘violence’ within the slave system of the United States South. It considers the multitude of ways ‘violence’ can be applied and used as a theoretical framework to interpret enslaved experiences. The early focus of the unit explores violence as a concept: How can we define it? How broad should our definition be? Did ‘violence’ change over time in the US South? As the unit progresses, students will consider the different ways that enslaved people experienced violence in public and in private through bodily punishment, medical experimentation, and exploitation of female bodies through sexual violence, forced reproduction and wet-nursing. Throughout, students are encouraged to engage with the testimony of formerly enslaved persons – interviews, autobiographies, and other primary and secondary materials - to reflect on ‘violence’ in the memory of formerly enslaved persons.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. Identify and analyse key themes in the history of violence and racial enslavement
2. Understand and use historical methods specific to the study of violence and racial enslavement in the American South.
3. Discuss and evaluate the historiographical debates that surround the topic
4. Understand and interpret primary sources and select pertinent evidence in order to illustrate specific and more general historical points
5. Present their research and judgements in written forms and styles appropriate to the discipline and to level I.

Teaching Information

1 x 2hr Seminar per week

1 x 1hr Seminar per week

Assessment Information

• Portfolio Part 1: 750 word primary source analysis [10%] (ILOs 1-3)
• Portfolio Part 2: 750 word broad question [10%] (ILOs 1-3)
• 4000 word research project [80%] (ILOs 1-5)

Reading and References

• Gregory Smithers, Slave Breeding: Sex, Violence, and Memory in American History (2014)
• John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation (1999)
• Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (2012)
• Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (1998)
• Rachel A Feinstein, When Rape was Legal: the Untold History of Sexual Violence during Slavery (2018)
• Terri L. Snyder, The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America (2015)