Reference no: EM133792875

Discussion Post

Choose one of the primary source options from below, analyze it with annotations (see annotation help below), then compare that source with one of the other primary sources. Make sure that it is not the same primary source. Next, compare those primary sources with the questions below, and finally post your annotations and comparison. Now the waiting game. Be patient and then read a classmates post and use the reflection response questions to answer your viewing of your classmates post.

Choose 1 of the Primary Sources:

Option I: Governor Percy of Jamestown

In this source, Gov Percy describes the horrendous events that took place in Jamestown when the winter came and they did not have any more food.

Option II: A Gaspesian Man Defends His Way of Life, 1691

Chrestien Le Clercq traveled to New France as a missionary, but found that many Native Americans were not interested in adopting European cultural practices. In this document, LeClercq records the words of a Gaspesian man who explained why he believed that his way of life was superior to Le Clercq's.

Option III: Salem Witch Trials

These two documents explore the hysteria and death that captured Salem, Massachusetts at the end of the seventeenth century. In the first document, Sarah Carrier testifies that her mother forced her to engage in witchcraft. Her mother, Martha Carrier, was hung one week later. In the second document, Ann Putnam recants her own deadly accusations twenty years after the witchcraft trials.

Option IV: Description of the Middle Passage

In this harrowing description of the Middle Passage, Olaudah Equiano described the terror of the transatlantic slave trade. Equiano eventually purchased his freedom and lived in London where he advocated for abolition.

Option V: The Trappend Maiden

In the following song lyric, we hear the sorrows of this European indentured young woman, whose life is in constant worry and stress.

Option VI: Rose Davis, Indentured Servant Sentenced to Life in Slavery

Rose Davis was born to an indentured servant white woman and a Black man. Slave law claimed that children inherited the status of their mother, a law that enabled enslavers to control the reproductive functions of their enslaved women laborers. However, as race increasingly became a marker of slavery, even the children of free white women could be vulnerable to enslavement. Rose had been working as an indentured servant when she petitioned the court for her freedom. Instead, she was sentenced to a lifetime of slavery.

Annotate that primary source:

Here is a method developed to help: The SQUARE method. Annotate in Word or Google Docs

1) Summarize key historical events and ideas - (put these in parentheses)
2) Put a Question mark ?? by ideas you do not understand or find confusing
3) Underline key words that seem important and explain why
4) Author's assumptions and biases - highlight these
5) Your Reactions and interpretations - (put these in parentheses)
6) Identify and Explain the author's main points/argument - bold these

The next part

Compare a different primary source from the provided list and reflect on the following questions (3-4 sentences long. Make sure to provide some examples to help with the reflection responses).

(Make sure you do not compare the same source you annotated)

1) How are the sources similar and/or different?
2) Why did you choose this source to compare?
3) How do these sources help you understand this period of the Colonial Life in the Americas (North and South America)?