 Today in African American Studies, I'd like to do a primary source investigation analyzing the concept of racism and the institution of slavery. Racism and slavery? Are they two sides of the same coin? Does one perceive the other? And does that even matter? Well, let's start this investigation by defining those two terms. Racism is the organized system of oppression of one so-called inferior racial group to the benefit of a superior group built into the institutional structure of society. Slavery as an institution is the ownership of one human being by another human being. In this primary source investigation, our central question is this. Is slavery a product of racism or is racism a product of slavery? And does that even matter? If we say that slavery and racism were both bad and that the legacies of those two institutions were negative for our modern society, then this question becomes an issue of reform, an issue of making society better and the approach that we take to making society better. If slavery preceded racism, then the divisions in our society and the problems of our society can be based in economics and class and maybe a class-based approach to or solution will be offered to that issue of division. If racism preceded slavery, then maybe the issue becomes a social issue and a social-based solution to the divisions in society will be taken. So let's take a look at the primary source document now using a parts as a way to analyze the document. The parts again was developed, this was a strategy developed by Dr. Cor Greer of the University of Maine at Machias. A part stands for A author who created the document, P place in time, where and when it was produced, P prior knowledge, so beyond information about author and context, what is the broader context of the time period? The second A is for audience for whom was the source created, R for reason why was the source created, T the main idea, what's the point being conveyed and finally S for significance. So what? Why does this document even matter? Here's the document. It is in a state inventory of James Stone in 1648. Take a few moments to look at this document. What's here? What is included in the list and why do you think it's there? What is an estate inventory? So the first A author, so an estate inventory generally taken if someone is being audited for what they have, the possessions that they have or upon someone's death, a list of things that they're leaving behind, a property that they're leaving behind to give to someone else, a relative or someone as an inheritance. So the author of this document is probably not James Stone. He's removed from it either because he's being audited or very likely because he's deceased. So it is legal counsel for Mr. James Stone or a relative or associate of Mr. James Stone is likely the author here. Place and time? We don't really know. The document doesn't say, but because there are servants involved, we can guess southern colonies but we really don't know, right? What we do know is that it takes place in the year 1648. We also know that this is the United States that we're talking about. Okay? How pee prior knowledge? Well from our U.S. history knowledge, we know that the first settlement, English settlement in the United States was at Jamestown in 1607. We also know that the first Africans arrived off the coast of Virginia in 1619. So again, keeping in mind that this was in 1648 that James Stone likely passed away. So he was alive during all of this. We also know that Africans were in every one of the colonies. Now not all of the 13 colonies had been formally established yet, but Africans were present in all of the colonies by this time. We also know that tobacco was a major cash crop in Virginia. It was also very labor intensive, so you needed a lot of servants to grow and harvest the tobacco. Okay? So that is just some background information that should help us further analyze this primary social document. Looking at the document again, what can we find out? Well one, we notice that this here's a list of people, list of names. And behind the names you see years, and it's years to serve. So Thomas grows four years to serve. And then you see this L-B-T-O-B-O. Because we know that tobacco was a major cash crop, and it was in abundance in Virginia and some of the other southern colonies and Chesapeake colonies, we know that L-B pounds, stands for pounds, and T-O-B-O stands for tobacco. So what this list is, is the list of names, people, the years they have left to serve, and how much they were worth. Tobacco was so abundant in the Chesapeake colonies and southern colonies that it was even used as a form of currency. So this is how much currency they were worth. So Thomas grows four years to serve, was worth 1,300 pounds of tobacco. And the list goes on from there, okay? So who are we writing this to? Who's our audience here? Again, if this is in a state inventory, assuming that James Stone had died, his relatives or associates of James Stone is the audience. They are either receiving this property, the servants that James Stone left behind, or they are going to sell it because they know now the worth of the property that James Stone left behind. So that's the audience. Our reason. Well reason, we want to determine the worth of James Stone's possessions through this estate inventory, either to, as I said before, sell these possessions, or to pass these possessions on to a relative or an associate. So this lets us know, gives us an accounting of what James Stone was worth. Another look at the document. So do we notice any differences here in the list, in people on the list? Well one thing that should stand out is that the numbers here are different. 1,300 for Thomas grows, four years to serve, 1,500 for Francis Bailey for six years to serve. So maybe their determination of worth is based on how many years left they have to serve. Three years, 1,300. Okay? Well, you see four years and three years are both 1,300. Who knows? Maybe John Thackstone was a little bit stronger than Thomas grows. Susan Davis, three years at 1,000, all right? Maybe it's because she's a woman that she's worth a little less. Emanuel A Negro Man, 2,000. Roger Stone, three years, 1,300. Mingo A Negro Man, 2,000. What do you notice? What's different about this list and how much they're worth? The main idea here is that Mr. James Stone was a wealthy man. To have this many servants means that he was pretty prosperous in what he did. Okay? So he owned several servants, some of the servants worth more pounds of tobacco than others. And we just looked at that and saw evidence of that. And lastly, what's the significance? So going back to our central question, is slavery a product of racism or is racism a product of slavery? To answer this question, I think we have to look at the document again closely and to see if we can find evidence of slavery in the document and then evidence of racism in the document. And after we do that, then see where that leads us in our analysis, in our primary source investigation. So again, evidence of slavery. So from the document, there's no direct evidence of slavery. Nowhere is it mentioned that any of these people are slaves. Indirectly, though, we can say that Emmanuel and Mingo, because they do not have years behind their name, and because they were worth a little more than the rest, that they are servants for life. And a servant for life is ownership of one human being of another, which goes back to our original definition of slavery. So indirectly, we do see evidence of slavery here. Now what about racism? This is a bit tougher, but maybe we can see evidence of racism in this document. What do you notice about the names? Well it seems clear that certain people have two names, a first name and a last name, and some people don't. Generally, when we think about things that only have first names and no last name, we might think of a pet or some other inanimate object or some other object. So maybe it's racist stripping Emmanuel and Mingo, the Negro men, of their last name. And what does the last name do? It connects you to your heritage, it connects you to your family, it connects you to your past. So perhaps that is racist. Perhaps it's racist that although they're servants for life, they're only worth just a tad bit more than the other servants who have a term limit to their years of service. So in conclusion, we see some evidence of slavery here, but it's indirect evidence. We also see some indirect evidence of racism in this document. So do we have an answer to our question? The chicken and the egg of the American slavery period in U.S. history? I don't think so. It's not as clear-cut as we like for it to be. I think both whether slavery or racism came first is we can't really get a clear sense of that from this document and I think we see evidence of both here. So thank you for your time.