PASCEP0228 - Resistance in Antebellum America

Course Description

This course explores America’s “Antebellum era”, an idea we may question throughout the semester. The course will begin with the 1619 landing and end at the dawn of the Civil War.  In between these two periods, this course will investigate uprisings against slavery, the birth of the underground railroad, and how laws accommodated the plantocracy. 

What this class will cover is much of what public history ignores – the racist mythology of slavery, tactics of non-violent resistance, appeals for political reformation, and plots for violent revolutions. The course will strive to make use of the art, speeches, manifestos, and laws that were created during this period as primary sources. The objective of the course is to inform the class upon the agency of enslaved individuals in the antebellum era while dispelling contemporary deceptions upon American history.

Course Outline

Hine, Darlene Clark, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold. The African-American Odyssey: Combined Volume. (New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007).