Topic 4.12: African Americans in the Early Republic (and 3.6)
Slavery and U.S. Society DBQ: S.P.Y. Method & Color-Coded Examples
2024 DBQ on Slavery and the development of U.S. society
KC-4.1.II.D Enslaved blacks and free African Americans created communities and strategies to protect their dignity and family structures, and they joined political efforts aimed at changing their status.
“But Sir how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind…that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression.” - Benjamin Banneker, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1791
Objective: Students will analyze primary source documents in order to evaluate the extent of the impact of the institution of slavery on the development of the society of the United States.
This Key Concept in the Antiracist Classroom :
If we are going to tell students and their families that this is college-level history course, then our class content must reflect the leading research in the professional field of U.S. History.
The aim of this site and these materials is to invite all educators to the transformational work of empowering our students to recognize the significance of their own voice, so they may become both change agents and engaged citizens. This is not about “calling people out” but “calling them in.”
That being said, troubling comments emerged from some APUSH teachers in various forums after the release of the 2024 APUSH DBQ. While this is an excellent DBQ, some teachers felt the question was unfair or inappropriate because of the periodization cutoff at 1840. This response hints at a larger problem. The lives of the enslaved and the major role that the institution of slavery played in the early development of the Republic are often glossed over between the Middle Passage and John Brown’s raid.
Slavery is not a small part of the story of the United States. To honestly understand and discuss the formation of major American institutions, slavery cannot be tucked away in Unit 2 and Unit 5. An antiracist classroom must acknowledge the enormous impact that the institution of slavery had on the formation of all American institutions. A country obsessed with liberty and the rhetoric of the Enlightenment built its wealth through violent human trafficking. The contradiction was so severe that society fully embraced the mythology of race to justify its hypocrisy. We cannot understand the rhetoric of the Revolution or the development of American society without fully understanding the pervasive impact that the institution of slavery had on the new republic.
“American racial ideology is as original an invention of the Founders as is the United States itself. Those holding liberty to be inalienable and holding Afro-Americans as slaves were bound to end by holding race to be a self-evident truth. Thus we ought to begin by restoring to race—that is, the American version of race—its proper history.” - Dr. Barbara Fields
“Racial exploitation and racial conflict have been part of the DNA of American culture...We must face the ultimate contradiction that our free and democratic society was made possible by massive slave labor.” - Dr. David Brion Davis
“It may be impossible to overstate the significance of race in defining the basic structure of American society.” - Michelle Alexander
Notes
I have been an AP history “exam reader” since 2018. My first read revolutionized the way I taught and evaluated the DBQ. I ditched the popular HIPP acronym for evaluating sources and created the S.P. Y. Method as a more effective approach to writing about each source. It is vital, for both teachers and students, to understand how DBQs are evaluated. These color-coded examples represent student examples.
My Method for using these resources:
Start class with the prompt and Benjamin Banneker’s letter to Thomas Jefferson (Doc 2). Instruct students to S.P. Y. the document on their own.
Next, instruct students to read documents 1 and 3 with a partner and instruct them to write a thesis statement together.
Handout the “DBQ Feedback” and have students attempt to assess sample context and thesis and evaluate the sample S.P. Y. attempts of Banneker’s letter
Go over the answer key and explain why each example would or would not get credit
Give students 5 mins to S.P. Y. either doc 4 or 5
Handout student sample DBQ #1 (non highlighted) and have them grade it. Then show them the highlighted version (student sample #1 is a 3) on the screen. Then handout out the exemploray example (student sample #2) and have students follow along and highlight the first few paragraphs in order for them to understand what the DBQ is supposed to look like
Or you can just hand them the documents and give students 55 minutes to read and write the DBQ and then start the next class with the DBQ Feedback Handout.