Debby Norris
Leonardtown Middle School, St. Mary’s County Public Schools
Participating in the “Hometown History” two day session in Chestertown, Maryland increased my awareness of the vast availability and relative ease of access to the variety of primary source resources available through the Maryland State Archives, Washington College library databases, and the local Maryland Historical Society. In addition, the motivational value of putting my hands on history during the course of the two days is nothing short of addicting. Examining period paintings, newspaper advertisements, deeds, slave narratives, to name a few, brought the realities and evils of the institution of slavery in Maryland front and center in the year 2011.
Having taught U.S. history for a number of years to middle students in St. Mary’s County and having taken numerous trips to the local Sotterley Mansion and Plantation, I am well aware of the strong range of emotions that the study of slavery, particularly the images and words of slavery from primary sources, evokes within the students in my classroom. After a valuable presentation by Chris Haley about teaching about the sensitive issue of slavery, I learned that it is important to approach the teaching of slavery with a balanced approach and that slavery was a business. That while white men enslaved Africans in America, white men also worked to free enslaved persons in the Americas.
Certainly after investigating the vast resources available to study the local history of Chestertown, Maryland, I have begun to explore the immense wealth of primary sources available in my own community of St. Mary’s County. Although I have incorporated a variety of primary sources including slave interviews, photographs, and advertisements, to teach about the experiences of being a slave, I plan on locating and incorporating local examples to bring our study home. Here is one local example of a primary source from February 1822 issue of the Daily National Intelligencer that I will incorporate to motivate and inspire additional research to determine “whatever happened to Jacob?”
In addition, I have located some local resources at the College of Southern Maryland to teach “the impact of Lincoln’s decisions regarding the deployment of black regiments.”
• Colored volunteers of Maryland Civil War; 7th Regiment United States Colored Troops, 1863-1866. Baltimore, MD: Agnes Kane Callum. various pg. [973.7 CAL]
• St. Mary’s County Civil War records. [929.3 BEI]
• “‘Colored’ troops proudly defended Union.” Paul C. Leibe. IN: The Enterprise,Wednesday, February 27, 2002, p. B-18. [VF – African-American History]
I will also incorporate the lyrics of “Maryland, My Maryland,” and the following 1863 cartoon lampooning Lincoln’s secret trip from Baltimore to Washington to represent the dissention and Confederate sympathies alive in Civil War Maryland.
