Slave Ownership in the Shenandoah Valley

Creative writing

Write a report from a London journalist having completed her investigation on slavery in the Valley of Virginia. Her report could include the following: 1. basic statistics on slave ownership, 2. relationship between masters and slaves, as depicted in the Augusta newspapers, 3. economic activity most slaves performed.

or

Traditional essay questions

Even though only a small percentage of Augusta families owned slaves, slave holders and slave holders' interests dominated the county. Assess the validity of this statement.

or

Slave holders defended slavery on the grounds that it was a fundamentally humane institution. How did they make the case that it was humane, and to what extent do you think they actually believed what they said and wrote?

Use this class period to search the Valley of the Shadow archives, take notes, and write a basic outline for your paper.

After you have shared your findings with the other teams in your group, edit your outline as you feel is necessary.

Your assignment for tonight is to turn your notes into a draft of a final paper.

Research suggestions:

• Search the slave owner census (in Part I: The Eve of the War, Public Records, Census). How many people owned over 50 slaves? over 20? over 10? (after you get to the results of your search, scroll down to the end for "statistics for this search" and "statistics for all records."). Note: The total white population of Augusta County was 21,547.

• Use the population census and the agricultural census (in Part I:The Eve of the War, Public Records) to find out more about certain slave holders of interest to you. What did they produce? What was their age? Were there any large slave owners who were not farmers? Did they tend to have large families?

• Use the newspaper search page (in Part I: The Eve of the War, Newspapers) to search the two Augusta newspapers for the last names of the largest slave holders. Once you get your list of dates, click the date to find the abstracts, and use your browser's "find" function to find the word you had searched by. Did these men play a large role in the politics and civic activity of their communities?

• Read relevant transcribed articles from Augusta County newspapers on African Americans and Race Relations and transcribed articles from Augusta County newspapers on slavery and politics.

• Use the newspaper search page to search the Staunton Spectator and Republican Vindicator for the words "slave," "slaves," "negro," "negroes," "black," "abolition," "abolitionist," "insurrection," and any other words you think might be helpful. Once you get your list of dates, click the date to find the abstracts, and use your browser's "find" function to find the word you had searched by.

• Examine the Free Black Registries of Augusta County and Staunton (in Part I: The War Years, Public Records). By what criteria were they defined as free? How common was voluntary emancipation? What else can you learn about emancipation from this document?

• Read the following letters from the McCue collection (in Part I: The Eve of the War, Letters and Diaries).From Travis E. Luckett to JH McCue, JH McCue to Mary Carrington, EH Wills to JH McCue, JG Coleman to JH McCue.