Good storytelling has much in common with good history teaching. Most first-rate stories engage readers through the conflict generated by characters acting against the designs of other characters. In such narratives, each person is driven to act by personal motives. Readers become involved in the story because they want to see how the characters’ clashing inner drives steer events toward a resolution of the conflict. Historic narrative is the same, except in the instance of history the characters are real people and the conclusions have a ripple that directly affects the students. As with good stories, history captivates students through its interpersonal tensions and the revealing of actors’ motivations. It is, in fact, these tensions and inner dramas that connect historic actions into a causal flow of events, creating a story.

Take for example the period right after the Civil War, the era of Reconstruction. A teacher might present it in the following way: The redefinition of relations between white southerners and African Americans lies at the heart of the Reconstruction narrative. Each group defined freedom for the ex-slaves differently, and these differing perspectives created frictions that remain today. The fight in the U.S. government over how to reconstruct the South reflected the stress produced by these two perspectives. A good teacher might convey this theme as an “advance organizer” and then go on to fill in the details of the tale. To illustrate tensions contained in the story, teachers might talk about the clash between white planters and freed slaves over work contracts, white violence against African-American political and social assertions, the North’s efforts to mediate race relations through the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the fight between Congress and President Andrew Johnson over Reconstruction plans. The teacher helps students weave these events in and out of the theme so that students see the conflicts driving the narrative forward (1).

Margaret McKeown and Isabel Beck remind history teachers that students are likely to learn history better when it is presented as a coherent narrative (2). In order to better understand the inner workings of characters in the narrative, students can delve deeper into the historic conflict through the use of primary documents. Samuel Wineburg, an educational psychologist and historian, has likened the historian’s work to that of a necromancer (3). Good historians bring back the dead, get them to talk with one another, and leave us with the yarn. By using primary documents such as diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, and oral interviews, students hear the arguments put forth by historic actors and directly experience the tensions and inner motives which lie at the heart of a given narrative.

To get at the voices in the documents and study a particular time, there is one important caveat. Students must possess a knowledge of the basic events from that era. This is so for two reasons. First of all, the knowledge provides a frame for the students to make sense of the learning they gain from the document. Secondly, it provides a context for understanding the time from which the document comes (4). The issue of context will be discussed later. For now, how can we teach students to critically analyze primary resources within the setting of a broader narrative?

The lesson described in this article revolves around two primary documents. The first is a diary written by David Golightly Harris, a middle-level white planter from South Carolina. The second is a record of testimony given in the U.S. Senate by Henry Adams, a freed slave and African-American activist living in Louisiana. These particular documents, written in the second half of the nineteenth century, represent two opposing perspectives on the events occurring during the era of Reconstruction. Because the views of the authors are so different, the conflicts introduced in the advance organizer become more distinct and more real.

In the course of the lesson, students will read each document three times and answer sets of questions, each set reflecting a different purpose. They begin the process by considering the documents themselves and the documents’ authors. Later questions ask students to reconstruct the basic message of each author and then examine similarities and differences in the messages. Since the tasks called for by the sets of questions are interrelated, students may revisit issues throughout the process. The analytical approach upon which the lesson is based is built upon concepts laid out by Samuel Wineburg in his study comparing expert and novice readers of primary historical documents (5).

The first set of questions (see Appendix A) asks students to explore what Wineburg calls the subtext of the document. The subtext includes two aspects: the document as a rhetorical artifact and the document as a human artifact. First, students must acknowledge that a given document was written for a purpose and consider that purpose in their analyses. In this instance, students must consider how Harris’s private diary versus Adams’s public Senate testimony might influence their respective telling of events. Secondly, students view the human subtext of the document; they allow their reading of the document to reveal what the author was like as a person. Reading the subtext, thoughtful students consider Harris as a farmer, struggling each day to scratch out a living from the land. They ponder Adams’s impassioned work as an activist seeking justice for freed slaves (6).

After reading the rhetorical and human subtexts students are ready to move to the first of three central heuristics that guide historians in their reading: sourcing the document (7). They identify who wrote the piece and explore how the author’s unique position might bias his version of the story. Sourcing is a tacit acknowledgment that a primary source does not convey an actual historic event but rather that the document is a piece of evidence used to construct a historical narrative. This heuristic builds on the initial examination of the document’s subtext, described above. After their first reading of the documents and the author biographies (Appendices B and D), students should answer the subtext questions in Section I of Appendix A. To answer many of the questions, they will need to read between the lines.

Once students have sourced the document and possess that knowledge as a cognitive frame, they can go on to reread each piece and then “interview” each author for his basic message. Interview directions and the questions themselves are presented in Section II of Appendix A. In answering the interview questions, students again need to be aware that they are working at two levels. Some of the questions are not answered directly in the writing, and so the students will need to rely on their own interpretations.

In their next reading, students employ the second heuristic identified by Wineburg: corroborating evidence. Corroborating requires students to compare documents and pull out impressions of the era reinforced across the sources. The task of corroboration is laid out in the third set of questions, Section III of Appendix A. Despite their seemingly opposing vantages, there are indeed issues that Adams and Harris agreed upon. Both observed and reported violence against the freed slaves. Both noted that the freed slaves did not trust their former owners. And finally, both discussed the fact that the freed slaves had a tendency to run away from the plantations they had previously worked on. There is more agreement, and it will be left to the students to dig out these areas of shared perception.

What about disagreements? What do historians do when documents present differing perspectives? What should our students do? To make sense of differing perspectives contained in primary documents, historians employ a third heuristic: contextualizing. That is, they place documents within the frame of a particular time. The contextual knowledge students bring to the documents will aid them in reconciling differences between the two reports and ultimately aid in generating an overall account. For instance, data on David Harris’s county, Spartanburg (Appendix C), portrays an impoverished region with a substantial population of freed slaves. Henry Adams was part of a broader movement to remove blacks from the South. His frustration over the treatment of freed slaves drove him to seek refuge for African Americans in Liberia. This information explains why Harris might view his payment of poor wages as economic necessity while Adams might see it as exploitation and a violation of civil rights. This backdrop helps historians place documents in a context and see the overall story connecting the two characters. Actually, the disagreements between Harris and Adams help historians and students discern the basic Reconstruction narrative. Perhaps students could see this more clearly if they were asked to roleplay a conversation between the two.

The tension between the Harris and Adams perspectives is reflected in national discussions of Reconstruction. The two had differing views of the value of an African-American life; they interpreted the liberty of former slaves in very different ways. These differences explain why they supported different approaches to reconstructing the South. People like Henry Adams wanted military intervention in the South to protect African-American rights; Harris wanted the government out so that whites could sustain the racial status quo. Learning about Reconstruction ceases to be an activity where students memorize the pieces of opposing Reconstruction plans. It becomes instead a human struggle over profound problems. By reading these two documents, students are at the heart of that conflict.

The italicized theme presented earlier suggests one interpretation of Reconstruction. There are others. The teacher can present opposing interpretations or ask students to ascertain which view matches best with the evidence. The teacher can also allow other slants to emerge from the students themselves. As students use primary documents to support one interpretation over another, they are moving deeper into areas of critical thinking.

There is an important difference between narratives contained in novels and narratives taken from history. Novels have a clear end; this is not so with historic issues. Nothing exemplifies this more than issues of race in America: some of the same tensions driving actors during Reconstruction remain today. Though the context has changed in one hundred years, contemporary racial divisions are heir to earlier tensions. Because history is such an open book, teachers can help students find themselves and the issues that confront them in the voices of people from the past. Though historians might limit themselves to raising the dead and getting them to talk, students of history can talk back and seek answers to important questions that still plague them.

Endnotes

1. Gaea Leinhardt, “Weaving Instructional Explanations in History,” British Journal of Educational Psychology 63 (1993): 46-74.

2. Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L. Beck, “Making Sense of Accounts of History: Why Young People Don’t and How They Might,” in Teaching and Learning in History, ed. Gaea Leinhardt, Isabel L. Beck, and Catherine Stainton (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994).

3. Samuel S. Wineburg, “On the Reading of Historical Texts: Notes on the Breach between School and Academy,” American Educational Research Journal 28 (Fall 1991): 495-519.

4. Robert H. Mayer, “Connecting Narrative and Historical Thinking: A Research-Based Approach to Teaching History,” unpublished manuscript (Moravian College, Bethlehem, PA, 1995).

5. Samuel S. Wineburg, “Historical Problem Solving: A Study of the Cognitive Processes Used in the Evaluation of Documentary and Pictorial Evidence,” Journal of Educational Psychology 83 (1991): 73-87.

6. Samuel S. Wineburg, “The Cognitive Representation of Historical Texts,” in Teaching and Learning in History, ed. Leinhardt, Beck, and Stainton.

7. Wineburg, “Historical Problem Solving,” 73-87.

Robert H. Mayer currently coordinates the secondary education program at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He received his doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Pennsylvania State University, his master’s in history from Xavier University (Cincinnati), and his bachelor’s degree in social studies education from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Mayer’s current research focus is the improvement of history teaching, and he has completed two articles on this subject. His goal is to bridge the gap between the work of researchers in academia and the world of classroom teachers. The author wishes to thank Greg Skutches and Robert Stinson for their careful and critical reading of this article and Michael Roth for his participation in the work which ultimately led to the writing of this article.

Appendix A: Document Questions

I. Subtext Questions

Read each document and the short biography of each author. Answer the following questions for each document. When answering the questions below, be ready to read between the lines of the document.

1. List basic facts about the author’s life. How might these facts influence the way the author thinks about events in the South after the Civil War?
2. What is the nature of the document (i.e. letter, diary)?
3. Who is the author’s audience?
4. Why is the person writing this document or speaking these words?
5. How might these three factors (questions 2-4) affect the way the author views events in the South after the Civil War?
6. What is the author of the document like as a person?

II. Interview Questions

Pretend you are alive in 1866 and are making a report about the situation in the postwar South for your town newspaper. How would Henry Adams and David Harris respond to the following questions? You will produce two sets of answers for these questions, one for each author.

1. What is your daily life like?
2. What work arrangements have been established for the freed slaves? Do you judge them to be fair? Explain.
3. In general, how are the freed slaves treated by white southerners?
4. What is the status of the freed slaves?
5. To Henry Adams: How do white southerners view the status of the freed slaves? Are their freedoms respected? Explain. To David Harris: How do freed slaves view their new status? Are their freedoms respected? Explain.
6. How do you feel about the northern troops in the South and the work of the Freedmen’s Bureau?
7. What should the federal government do to help reconstruct the South?

III. Corroboration Questions

Consider both documents while answering the following.

1. What do Henry Adams and David Harris agree on?
2. What do they disagree on?
3. Why do the two disagree? (Refer to your answers to the subtext questions for help.)
4. Is one of the authors more correct about certain issues than the other? If so, what issues? What evidence tells you they are right?
5. What else do you know about the South at this time that might help you explain the differences between the authors? What else do you know about the United States at this time that might help you explain the differences between the authors?

Appendix B: Journals of David Golightly Harris

David Golightly Harris (1824-1875)
David Harris was a planter who lived in the area of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Although he initially worked fifty acres of land, his farm later expanded through inheritance. He was married with seven children and owned, at the most, ten slaves. The Harris family lived in a three room house, and after the Civil War, David Harris lost much of his property.

Note: Entries contained in the journal are skipped as indicated below. Brackets [ ] indicate explanatory additions made by the journal editor or this author. Spellings and punctuation are as they appear in the original journal.

Source: Philip N. Racine, ed., Piedmont Farmer: The Journals of David Golightly Harris, 1855-1870 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990), 1-26.

The Journals
1865
June 3. Looked [at] every crop & find it (the corn) doing pretty well. The plows have gone to work again. Though the land is rather wet. Wife, and I spent most of the day at C F[rank] Camps. We have got our garden again reset, & it will soon be all good as new. The day has been quite warm, and the crops are growing well to day.

June 4. Sunday. The girls have gone to the village to be at Anna Mitchell’s wedding which comes off next Tuesday. The day is pleasant and all is well. A little rain late night &c.

June 5. Sale day. I went to the village in the buggy, carrying Billy Ray [a friend]. There was a good many persons at the village, but little business was doing. [Maj. Gen. Quincy Adams] Gillmore (A yankey) has issued a proclamation freeing all the Negroes. I do not much think it will have much effect. Began plowing the Buffalo Bottom. The weather is warm, & there is a good season in the ground, & our crops are growing fine.

June 6. Commenced working the Sugar cane. YORK [ex-slave] DISAPPEARED on yesterday morning. I suppose that he has gone to the yankey. I wish they would give him a good whipping & hasten him back. This is the beginning of Negro trouble. I think they are making trouble for themselves. Plowing & hoeing.

{Skip in entries}

August 12. Weather fine & seasonable. The seasons are really fine this summer, & the crops in this neighborhood are about as good as they have ever been. They are fine indeed.

August 14. Went to the village & found the citizens in a gloomy frame of mind on account of ugly state of affairs in the political world. Indeed it is a most gloomy time. We are conquered & the feet of the conquers are on our necks. We must submit to all they require & have no redress. Alas! A decree has gone forth from the Yankeys, that we must say to our Negroes that they are free. If they stay with us, we are to pay them, & not drive them off nor correct them. The Negroes seem to receive a higher place in the yankey opinion than the white people. Negroes are permitted to do & say what they please & the white man has but little favours shown them.

August 15. To day I told my Negroes they were all free & requested all to go. Ann [ex-slave] has gone off, & the others have gone to work. Some are cutting wood to make molasses with. Some are seering [searing]. Elifus [ex-slave] gone to mill. I fear much trouble & annoyance before we can get settled again.

{Skip in Entries}

November 24. Finished sowing Wheat. We have been a long time putting in a little. Mr Fowler has to day finished sowing his little crop in the meadow bottom. The weather is still fine. This has been the best fall for work that any one have ever seen. Today rented to Mr M Brewten the Camp Place. Fowler tends one half of it. In this district several Negroes have been badly whipped & several have been hung by some unknown persons. This has a tendency to keep them in their proper bounds & make them more humble. Willie [son] has just returned from his first visit (To Bill Camp). Quite an epoch for the little visitor. Elifus & Nerve [ex-slaves] cutting wheat.

Appendix C: Facts About Spartanburg, South Carolina

Source: Government Printing Office. The Ninth Census of the United States: June 1, 1870, Vol. III (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1872), 85-89.

Appendix D: Testimony of Henry Adams

Henry Adams (1843-?)
Henry Adams was an ex-slave who traveled throughout Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas recording his observations of the hardships faced by African Americans. He was a political activist who helped freed slaves gain fair labor contracts and fair elections in the South. Because of the injustice he observed, Adams concluded that freed slaves needed to migrate out of the South. Though he favored emigration to Liberia, he also supported massive African-American migration to the West. In 1880, Henry Adams testified before the U.S. Senate concerning the black exodus out of the South.

Source: Nell I. Painter, Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), 71-108; Dorothy Sterling, ed. The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell the Story of Reconstruction. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc, 1976), 6-9.

Testimony
The white men read a paper to all of us colored people telling us that we were free and could go where we pleased and work for who we pleased. The man I belonged to told me it was best to stay with him. He said, “The bad white men was mad with the Negroes because they were free and they would kill you all for fun.” He said, stay where we are living and we could get protection from our old masters.

I told him I thought that every man, when he was free, could have his rights and protect themselves. He said, “The colored people could never protect themselves among the white people. So you had all better stay with the white people who raised you and make contracts with them to work by the year for one-fifth of all you make. And next year you can get one-third, and the next you maybe work for one-half you make. We have contracts for you all to sign, to work for one-twentieth you make from now until the crop is ended, and then next year you all can make another crop and get more of it.”

I told him I would not sign anything. I said, “I might sign to be killed. I believe the white people is trying to fool us.” But he said again, “Sign this contract so I can take it to the Yankees and have it recorded.” All our colored people signed it but myself and a boy named Samuel Jefferson. All who lived on the place was about sixty, young and old.

On the day after all had signed the contracts, we went to cutting oats. I asked the boss, “Could we get any of the oats?” He said, “No; the oats were made before you were free.” After that he told us to get timber to build a sugar-mill to make molasses. We did so. On the 13th day of July 1865 we started to pull fodder. I asked the boss would he make a bargain to give us half of all the fodder we would pull. He said we may pull two or three stacks and then we could have all the other. I told him we wanted half, so if we only pulled two or three stacks we would get half of that. He said, “All right.” We got that and part of the corn we made. We made five bales of cotton but we did not get a pound of that. We made two or three hundred gallons of molasses and only got what we could eat. We made about eight-hundred bushel of potatoes; we got a few to eat. We split rails three or four weeks and got not a cent for that.

In September I asked the boss to let me go to Shreveport. He said, “All right, when will you come back?” I told him “next week.” He said, “You had better carry a pass.” I said, “I will see whether I am free by going without a pass.”

I met four white men about six miles south of Keachie, De Soto Parish. One of them asked me who I belonged to. I told him no one. So him and two others struck me with a stick and told me they were going to kill me and every other Negro who told them that they did not belong to anyone. One of them who knew me told the others, “Let Henry alone for he is a hard-working nigger and a good rigger.” They left me and I then went on to Shreveport. I seen over twelve colored men and women, beat, shot and hung between there and Shreveport.

Sunday I went back home. The boss was not at home. I asked the madame where was the boss? She said, “Now, the boss; now, the boss! You should say ‘master’ and ‘mistress’ —and shall or leave. We will not have no nigger here on our place who cannot say ‘mistress’ and ‘master.’ You all are not free yet and will not be until Congress sits, and you shall call every white lady ‘missus’ and every white man ‘master.’”

During the same week the madame taken a stick and beat one of the young colored girls, who was about fifteen years of age and who is my sister, and split her back. The boss came next day and take this same girl (my sister) and whipped her nearly to death, but in the contracts he was to hit no one any more. After the whipping a large number of young colored people taken a notion to leave. On the 18th of September I and eleven men and boys left that place and started for Shreveport. I had my horse along. My brother was riding him, and all of our things was packed on him. Out come about forty armed men (white) and shot at us and taken my horse. Said they were going to kill every nigger they found leaving their masters; and taking all of our clothes and bed-clothing and money. I had to work away to get a white man to get my horse.

Then I got a wagon and went to peddling, and had to get a pass, according to the laws of the parishes, to do so. In October, I was searched for pistols and robbed of $250 by a large crowd of white men and the law would do nothing about it. The same crowd of white men broke up five churches (colored). When any of us would leave the white people, they would take everything we had, all the money that we made on their places. They killed many hundred of my race when they were running away to get freedom.

After they told us we were free—even then they would not let us live as man and wife together. And when we would run away to be free, the white people would not let us come on their places to see our mothers, wives, sisters, or fathers. We was made to leave or go back and live as slaves. To my own knowledge there was over two thousand colored people killed trying to get away after the white people told us we were free in 1865. This was between Shreveport and Logansport.

Source: Dorothy Sterling, ed. The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell the Story of Reconstruction. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1976), 6-9.