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HIST208Y: Historical Research and Methods Seminar: Creating African Diasporas in the Americas
The purpose of this seminar is to introduce students to historical research using primary sources and teach them the skills of the professional historian. Students will conduct their original research on the subject of Creating African Diasporas in the Americas, and relate it to historiographical debates concerning this transnational approach to history. The course comprises common readings, discussion sessions, library instruction, and methodology seminars.
In this course, students will learn methodological skills: how to differentiate between primary and secondary sources; how to identify and critique arguments in secondary works; how to read and analyze texts; how to conduct and document research; how to create an historical argument/interpretation using primary evidence; and how to present that argument/interpretation in clear and coherent historical prose.
Students will also be encouraged to think of the history of people of African descent in the Americas in a transnational way. This means considering historical processes as they occur simultaneously in different geographical areas. Students will situate themselves geographically (and not necessarily within the U.S. national borders) but will be strongly encouraged to consider historical problems and ask historical questions that cross national boundaries.
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The Atlantic African Diaspora
The African Diaspora is a transnational, interdisciplinary field whose purpose is to explore and elucidate the processes of dispersal and connection in the history of African peoples globally, from the ancient world to the present. The more specialized field of the Atlantic African Diaspora is characterized by the study of the forced migration of millions of Africans from the African continent to the new societies around the Atlantic littoral; the nature of the new communities of African and African-descended peoples created in the Americas; the lateral relationships amongst and between those communities with others on the African continent; and the relationships amongst and between African-born, people of African descent, Europeans, and Amerindian populations in the Americas and in Europe. It is temporally bounded by the processes of enslavement, emancipation and post-emancipation that spanned over five centuries--from the middle of the fifteenth century to the dawn of the twentieth.
This research guide will provide students an introduction to the primary, secondary and reference material available on the study of the Atlantic African Diaspora. It will also provide an introduction to the principal scholars, texts, schools, methodologies, and subjects of the field. It will finish with several considerations on the trajectory of the field of Atlantic African diaspora study.
Reference Sources
A really useful reference source I found was Afro-American Reference- An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Resources compiled and edited by Nathaniel Davis. The call number is McK Ref E185.D258 1985. Not only is this book clearly divided into subheadings such as education, religion, and politics, it also includes an extensive index making topic-related searches efficient. I found a number of books which I will definitely locate and read when researching my topic which focuses on Africa dance.
The reference book, "Harvard Guide to African-American History," has a notable table of contents. It is divided into specific time periods, each complete with a listing of specific elements of African-American culture. Broad subject searches can be pared down using the details provided in the table of contents.
The "Africana Studies: A survey of Africa and the African Diaspora" is a helpful encyclopedia with a wide range of information on the African Diaspora. As a broad reference source, it would be most helpful to those who want to gain a general understanding of the African Diaspora. The call number is McK Ref DT16.5.A35.
A reference source that I found very useful was "The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Civil Rights from Emancipation to the 21st Century." It will be helpful for topics based on the inequality and prejudice impeding the success of African Americans within greater society. I am focusing on racial violence in the south and this source was a great start for me.
A book I found extremely useful was "Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom" (Call no. Mck Ref F 1881.J35 2002) which would provide a number of primary sources for any student interested in Jamaica and maroon society.
There is a lot to be gained from "The Afro-American Encyclopedia" (Call no. Mck Ref E 185.A28 V.5). As a survey of African American history, it helped me gain a broad understanding of the historical experience of the African American community and thus, allowed me to further focus my research question.
My topic includes the present day views of post-bellum American society. I found the Encyclopedia Britiannica’s Guide to Black History- time line (http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/timeline?tocId=9433428§ion=252279) extremely helpful in my attempt to find a clear and concise chronology of events.
The bibliography Afro-American Folk Culture contains an expansive list of different texts concerning the subject of folk culture among African Americans. This reference source is especially useful for topics such as song, dance, and linguistics of African Americans, though less covered subjects can be found as well. The volume itself is split into sources pertaining to different regions in the Americas. Unfortunately, the index takes some getting used to, but is ultimately very helpful in navigating the bibliography.
A reference source that I found very helpful was "Reference Library of Black Studies" (Call no. Mck Ref E 185. E554 2005). This reference source helped me expand my list of keywords to use in future research and helped me narrow my topic. In addition to the citations worth following up on, the index was straight forward and easy to understand. I think this reference book helped lead me in the right path for my paper.
One helpful source I used was "Africa: A Handbook on the Continent" (McK DT30.L38). While the name may seem impossible to deliver what it has promised, it presents a number of articles by prominent authors such as Basil Davidson. The book offers a view of Africa from different angles. Not only does it provide an internal perspective, it also includes an article on European perceptions of the continent during the slave trade.
I am going to be doing my thesis on the inequalities of the legal system, and how it has kept the slave's freed descendants in poor, urban centers, and continues to oppress them today. The FBI has their cases on file at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm which will be great for comparing statistics pertaining to this marginalized group.
I used the "Guide to Historical Maps On-Line" listed on the UMD library database website. This database provides a number of maps created over a large span of time. It allows you to download and print maps of specific countries, islands, and land masses.
Secondary Sources
I found the book, African American Dance: An Illustrated History, by Barbara Glass to be extremely useful for my research as it provides an assessment of the evolution of African American dance. The dynamic nature of the dances themselves were reflected in this source's ability to explain the changes in the diaspora and how these changes were reflected.
This anthology has the entire narrative of Mary Prince, a West Indian slave, and also Linda Brent “Harriet Jacobs.” It is useful to my research as a daily secondary source for my primary source of The History of Mary Prince, this book allows me to obtain information that I might need at any given point. It also has many other African American narratives which could be useful.
Andrews, Williams and Henry Louis Gates, eds. The Civitas Anthology of African American Slave Narratives. Washington, D.C.: Civitas Counterpoint, 1999.
I found the book, Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory by Jonathon Markovitz to be very helpful in my research. The book focuses on violence against blacks in the south in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It includes many primary documents, mostly pictures, that give the reader a clear understanding of the hardship and struggle facing blacks in the post-civil war period.
The reference that was extremely usefull in my research was the reference source African American Atlas, Black History and Culture by Molefi K. Asante the call number of the book is MCKREF. E.185.a79.1998. This book provided a very descriptive yet concise description of several topics on life after emancipation. It was a very informative source with several dates and various names. A perfect book to get a brief overview of your topic.
Since my research topic is going to be about the tensions that arose in society after emancipation the book The Black worker : race, labor, and civil rights since emancipation / edited by Eric Arnesen perfectly coincides with my topic completely. The book takes an in depth look into the problems and tensions that African Americans face on an everyday basis. Not only does the book focus on each individual worker but it takes a lager view on the effect these tensions have on the outside society. This book also utilizes many primary sources and has various descriptions of real life accounts.
My subject of research is at this point the African American ship captain Paul Cuffee, and the book "Rise to Be a People: A Biography of Paul Cuffee" has been instrumental in helping me understand this man. During the early 19th century he took it upon himself to bring a ship of freed African American slaves back to Africa where he established a colony as part of the "Back to Africa" movement.
Thomas, Lamont D. 1986. Rise to be a People: A Biography of Paul Cuffee. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Call no: Mck E 185.97.C96T48
The book The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts takes a look at some of the lesser known or discussed forms of art and African Americans' role in them. These arts include basketry, quilting, pottery, and musical instruments, as well as others. Each art is covered in a different chapter, and the distinct forms of each is sectioned off within the chapter. The book includes pictures of these different arts and a bibliography that is helpful, but not overly expansive. The call number is N 6538.N5V57.
The item that I foudnd to be very helpful was the "American Negro Songs Fron Slavery Times" (sound recordings). Call no. M1670. J65R6. These recordings are very useful for my project because they give me and idea of how the songs went and what messages they held. The only down fall to the recordings are that they dont give reference to other places to get information.
Edited by Darien J. Davis. 2007. Beyond slavery: the multilayered legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
This collection of articles compiled by Darien J. Davis is extremely informative. It provides perspectives on the African Diaspora from various different regions and groups pf people. I found the Geggus article on Haiti to be most helpful for my research; however, other articles focused on areas such as Ecuador. McKeldin Stacks F1419.N4 B49 2007
I found a great book about racism being institutionalized in a free, equal society called 'Good cop, Bad cop: Racial Profiling and Competing Views of Justice in America' by Milton Heumann. It was appalling to see so many recorded cases of profiling and stereotyping in modern America. I am thinking of changing my topic to a study of modern day 'Jim Crow' laws and other inequalities of the system
The primary source I found most useful was the African American newspapers such as The North Star. I accessed the papers through the course website www.lib.umd.edu/MCK/history208y.html. The Frederick Douglass Papers and the Christian Repository were also very useful. I specifically used the Christian Repository to find an article related to my topic of African dance in celebrations. These papers are helpful and useful in this course because they discuss the culture of the times.
The National Library of Art was a very useful research port. The search engine allowed you obtain not only images and photographs but it also contained various accounts that were relevant to each picture. The National Library of Art is a very useful tool to utilize to help you compile several different types of information. It is also useful because it provides you with a visual image that you can draw your own conclusions from.
The primary source I found most useful was an article in The National Era, The Shorter Catechism, With Shorter Answers. Found in microfilm item #36989. If you are doing anything related to religion or slaves and religion this article outlines the New School Presbyterian General Assembly and the tensions between the North and the South church members and their affiliation with slaves
I found a collection of pictures that could very easily be used as primary sources for a large number of topics. The book in which the pictures are found is called Captive Passage and its call number is McK HT1322.C35.
If researching a topic in the field of Caribbean slavery, then this enormous collection of articles will be very useful. Edited by Verene A. Shepherd and Hilary McD. Beckles, the collection is titled, Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World. At the University of Maryland it can be found in the McKeldin Stacks under the call number HT1071.C343.
There are numerous secondary sources related to the topic of Negro Leagues Baseball. However, one book that I found to be extremely helpful in compiling my paper is Black Baseball Entrepreneurs by Michael E. Lomax. Lomax in his book in his book is able to provide the early history of the leagues, not only from a social aspect, but from an economic and political standpoint as well. Lomax draws his evidence from a wide variety of primary sources.
Methodology
To acclimate students to the broad methodological trends in the field Atlantic African Diaspora history, an overview of existing projects in the field is appropriate here. While these scholarly approaches may apply to the study and history of other African diasporic streams, they are utilized primarily by scholars of the Atlantic African diaspora. Suggested readings may accompany each description, although students should consider that these are broad categories of approach and individual scholars can--and often do--fall between, within, and amongst different schools of thought.
