Investigations

We also followed the conversations that developed as the students shared the observations and thinking behind their choices.

Text:  Excerpts from a letter “In behalf of the Freedmen Committee” of Edisto Island, October 1865

We passed out copies of the excerpts from the letter and asked students to take turns reading until the entire text had been read aloud.

We said:

Choose a sentence that stands out to you.  When it’s your turn, read it aloud.

We asked:

• What made you choose that sentence?
• Did anyone else choose the same sentence?  What made you choose it?
• When you look at the two texts side by side, what do you notice?

We also followed the conversations that developed as the students shared the reasons they chose their sentences.

For student responses, scroll down to Student Responses and click View More.

MADDIE:  I thought the basket was, like, slavery — doing something you have to do, not that you want to do.

LUYA:  …  But also the way it was written, with a basket over his head, I thought it wasn’t strong enough.  Slavery — if I was a slave — the way I think of slavery, I think it would be a whole lot worse.  I think of it as being locked in a cell.  A basket would be easy to switch around.  Slavery is not that easy to switch around.

ORLANDO:  The old masters wanted the slaves to work on their plantations again.

BEN:  The old masters would be willing to hire them again, but they would go back to the masters’ plantations.  [The teacher asks him to read the lines that made him think that.]
“General Howard, in simple words, said that he, being their friend, had been sent by the President to tell them that the owners of the land, their old masters, had been pardoned, and their plantations would be given back to them; that they wanted to come back to cultivate the land, and would hire the blacks to work for them.”  …  The slave owners are now pardoned and get their land back.  Before the blacks were slaves, now they have a choice.

DANIEL:  “At first the people could not understand, but as the meaning struck them, that they must give up their little homes and gardens, and work again for others, there was a general murmur of dissatisfaction.”  They had their homes, white people came, they have to work [for them].  …  They didn’t have the power to keep that stuff [their homes and gardens].

CLARA:  “At first the people could not understand, but as the meaning struck them, that they must give up their little homes and gardens, and work again for others, there was a general murmur of dissatisfaction.”  …  It’s written really well, portrays well how the people were feeling.  They had all these terrible feelings but wouldn’t show them.  They would murmur to themselves.  …  They have to go work for the people they had been enslaved by.

NEIL:  They don’t have to, but the masters are getting that land back.  …  If somebody had a plantation there and is pardoned, they get that land back.

TEACHER:  [Speaking from the perspective of a freedman] I got this land!

NEIL:  You lose it.

TEACHER:  It was the president’s order!

NEIL:  It might be a different president.

BETHANY:  I chose the sentence, “It was a hard day for them, poor creatures.”  It’s not treating them as people, but as kind of a joke.

TEACHER:  Robin, you chose that sentence, too.

ROBIN:  It’s kind of an insult.

BETHANY:  It’s making us picture them as sad, weak and helpless.

TEACHER:  Did anyone pick a sentence that counters Clara’s thought that murmuring wasn’t enough of a response?

CLARA:  Can I contradict myself?  If you’d been beaten by this person, enslaved by this person, you would just murmur, because you’re scared.

TEACHER:  So, fear.

ROSE:  [Contradicting Clara]  He said he wouldn’t just put the basket over his head again.   I don’t think he, at least, was really scared, and I don’t think he should have to put the basket over his head again.

TIM:  “He begged them to lay aside their bitter feelings, and to become reconciled to their old masters.”  [That makes it sound like they had been saying] you want us to give back the land, then make us.

TEACHER:  What makes you think that?

TIM:  He’s begging.  They’re like, you gave us that land under president’s orders.

…

ROSE:  It says, “We heard murmurs of, ‘No, never.’  ‘Can’t do it.’”  I heard it as, we’re not satisfied with it, won’t do it.

CLARA:  But it also says, “General Howard’s task” — he has to get them to work for their [former] owners, that’s his job, and also what else are they going to do?

Text:  Excerpts from a letter “In behalf of the Freedmen Committee” of Edisto Island, October 1865

ALEX:  “Shall not we who Are freedman and have been always true to this Union have the same rights as are enjoyed by Others?”  It’s a good point, saying, if they’re freedmen, shouldn’t they have the same rights as other people?

LUYA:  “Here is were we have toiled nearly all Our lives as slaves and were treated like dumb Driven cattle.”  It’s a whole lot better than the other one — yesterday I chose that one with the basket over his head.  It was too simple.  Slavery is a lot worse than a basket.  “dumb Driven cattle” makes more sense — that slaves would be treated like them.

JULIA:  “we have been always ready to strike for Liberty and humanity yea to fight if needs be To preserve this glorious union” … It made me feel the freedmen are really brave and strong.  They should be treated like humans, like now.

CLARA:  Mine is, “yes our Situation is dangerous.”  That’s a really good word to end with — powerful.

…

NEIL:  They were worried about their future.  If they lost that land that they have, they wouldn’t have anything, even if it’s a few acres, which is less than [the field order said].  So they wouldn’t have any place to live.  They would have to go back to work for their masters all year round and couldn’t work for themselves.

BETHANY:  “We are ready to pay for this land When Government calls for it.”  Didn’t they already pay for it?

…

RACHEL:  They really don’t want to go back.  They’re willing to pay a fair amount of money to keep the land.

JULIA:  How — like, should the whites get the land or should the blacks get the land?  It’s the whites’ land — they bought it and did stuff to it.

ANNELIESE:  The ex-slaves — they’re the ones who made everything work.  They made everything grow.

TEACHER:  There are two sides — I don’t really know which side I’m on.

CLARA:  The slaves were living with the slave owners, so they have no place to go.  It wouldn’t be fair to the black people to make them live on the street, but it wouldn’t be fair to the white people to take the land they bought with their money.

NORA:  I think the government should have paid the owners for it so the [ex-] slaves could keep it.

…

RACHEL:  If they were trying to be fair, for all the years the slaves worked, they should have gotten the land as compensation.  It would have come out even.