Part I: (4-5 pages, double-spaced)

Mrs. Dred Scott gives us a window onto some of the complex operations of slavery and freedom for African Americans in the mid-19th century United States. Write an essay in which you answer this question:

How does studying the life of Harriet (and her family) help us develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how slavery worked in antebellum America?

As you develop your argument, you should consider the following. You don’t need to answer all of these questions one by one, but they should help you write a complete answer to the question

• How does the focus on Harriet and her family confound the simple view of slavery and freedom that we usually get from textbooks – that all southern blacks were enslaved on plantations and all northern blacks were free?
• How does Harriet’s story complicate the meaning of freedom and slavery for individuals trying to survive and support a family in places like the Northwest Territory and St. Louis?
• How does Harriet’s story reveal the ways in which African Americans were able to resist and/or shape their experiences?
• What limitations were there on this ability?
• How did being a woman shape Harriet’s experiences and choices?

Be sure to give specific examples from the reading, discussions, and lectures to support your argument. Be sure to include citations for information that is quoted or paraphrased.  

Not sure how to get started: you might want to refer back to the directions for Take Home Essay #1.

Citations:

• We will use in-text citations and a works-cited page for these essays.
• Whenever you quote or paraphrase or use ideas from a reading, you MUST include a citation.
• Next to the sentence in which you use the quote, paraphrase, or ideas, in parentheses, put an author and a page number or other identifying information. For example:
  • If your source is a book: (Lepore, 17).
  • If your source is a film: (Mary Silliman’s War).
  • If your source is a letter: (Abigail Adams, April 1776).
  • If your source is a webpage: (commonplace.org (Links to an external site.)).
  • If your source is a lecture: (Jolly, February 12, 2019).
• Then at the end of the paper, include a Works Cited page. In alphabetical order, list all your references and give the full citation. In history papers, the information on the Works Cited page must be in Chicago style. Here are examples of how they must look:

VanderVelde, Lea. Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Washington, George. Letter to Abigail Adams. April 14, 1776.