Short Answer
With this 1850 act, formerly enslaved people who escaped to the North could be re-kidnapped and re-enslaved.
What is the Fugitive Slave Act?
--That during the presence of Captain Amasa Delano on board, some attempts were made by the sailors, and one by Hermenegildo Gandix, to convey hints to him of the true state of affairs; but that these attempts were ineffectual, owing to fear of incurring death, and furthermore owing to the devices which offered contradictions to the true state of affairs; as well as owing to the generosity and piety of Amasa Delano incapable of sounding such wickedness…
What is Herman Melville, “Benito Cereno,” 1856?
Name one theme of Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Possible answers: What is “self-formation in the face of slavery”? What is “hypocrisy of the American slavery system”? What is “challenges of enslaved motherhood”? etc.
This novel was a runaway bestseller in the 19th century, inspiring numerous stage adaptations and minstrel shows.
What is Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
A formal or thematic CONNECTION between Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Harper’s “Eliza Harris.”
Example answer: What is “Harper’s poem uses Stowe’s character and story to modify her sentimental appeal into a more direct indictment of American government”?
This genre of fiction appeals strongly to readers’ emotions, often targeting a female readership.
What is sentimental or domestic fiction?
And how shall I describe my sensations when we were fairly sailing on Chesapeake Bay? O, the beautiful sunshine! the exhilarating breeze! and I could enjoy them without fear or restraint. I had never realized what grand things air and sunlight are till I had been deprived of them.
What is Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, 1861?
Name one formal element in this passage:
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
Possible answers: What is “grammatically unconventional use of dashes”? What is “capitalization of nouns ‘Somebody,’ ‘Frog,’ and ‘Bog’”? What is “exclamatory sentences”?
Legend has it (wrongly) that Abraham Lincoln called this person the “little woman” who started “this great war.”
Who is Harriet Beecher Stowe?
A formal or thematic CONTRAST between Douglass’s “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July” and any UNIT 1 text.
Example answer: What is “On the anniversary of ‘The Declaration of Independence,’ Douglass addresses the hypocritical exclusions that Jefferson et al. failed to mention in that idealistic document”?
Most of this author’s poems were found and published after her death.
Who is Emily Dickinson?
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d pailings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig with its flower I break.
What is Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” 1865?
Name one theme that Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and Henry David Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” have in common.
Possible answer: What is “American nonconformist identity”?
This author worked as a nurse during the Civil War.
Who is Harriet Jacobs?
A formal or thematic CONNECTION between Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and any UNIT 1 text.
Example answer: What is “Jacobs’ Linda Brent resists the idea of purchasing her own freedom on principle; Phillis Wheatley, however, seems satisfied to exchange freedom for Christianity in ‘On Being Brought from Africa to America’”?
An author considered by mid-20th century scholars to be part of the “American Renaissance.” (Multiple answers possible!)
Who is Walt Whitman/Emily Dickinson/Ralph Waldo Emerson/Henry David Thoreau/Nathaniel Hawthorne?
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.
What is Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” 1865?
Name one formal element in this passage:
The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;—stumbling—leaping—slipping—springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone—her stockings cut from her feet—while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.
Possible answers: What is “shift from past to present tense”? What is “movement verbs between dashes: ‘—stumbling—leaping—slipping—springing’”? What is “focus on action instead of reflection or imagery”?
In the 1850s, ___________ rates are increasing for women, who have more access to education. However, they don’t improve markedly for Black Americans until after the Civil War.
What are literacy rates?
A formal or thematic CONTRAST between Melville’s “Benito Cereno” and Fredrick Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.”
Example answer: What is “Melville’s unreliable narration makes it difficult to tell how the reader should feel about the slave rebellion, but Douglass’s speech very directly and clearly calls out the hypocrisy of enslavement”?
This author’s narrative of enslavement is described by one scholar as an “ascent narrative.”
Who is Fredrick Douglass?
But perhaps you will be ready to query, why appeal to women on this subject? We do not make the laws which perpetuate slavery. No legislative power is vested in us; we can do nothing to overthrow the system, even if we wished to do so. To this I reply, I know you do not make the laws, but I also know that you are the wives and mothers, the sisters and daughters of those who do; and if you really suppose you can do nothing to overthrow slavery, you are greatly mistaken.
What is Angela Grimké, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, 1836?
Name one theme in Melville’s “Benito Cereno.”
Possible answers: What is “white enslavers’ fear of slave rebellion”? What is “violence against indigenous people”?
A rebellion of enslaved people that Linda Brent remembers in Incidents.
What is Nat Turner’s Rebellion?
A formal or thematic CONNECTION between Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and any CONTEMPORARY text.
Example answer: What is “Incidents and the film 12 Years a Slave both recount true stories of enslavement and escape in an effort to awaken readers/viewers to the ongoing injustices toward Black people in America”?