May I please get some help

Part 1:

Meet the Primary Source

Primary Source 1

Primary Source 2

Write the title of the primary source from the U.S History I Primary Source List and paste the web link here.

"The Bostonians in Distress"

https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a13536/

“Letter from a freedman to his old master”

https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/reconstruction/jourdon-anderson-writes-his-former-master-1865/

What type of primary source is this?

(Types could include a letter, speech, court transcript, legislation, diary entry, photograph, artifact, map, broadside, circular, political cartoon, artwork, etc.)

“The Bostonians in Distress” is a print. It looks like an early political cartoon.

This primary source is a letter.

Provide a brief description of something you notice about the source, as if you were explaining it to someone who can’t see it.

(For example, you might describe its physical appearance, its formal title if it has one, its type of language, its size or length, or anything else in particular that stands out to you.)

The image was originally printed in a London newspaper in 1774. It depicts American colonists from Boston in a cage hanging from a “Liberty Tree.” Cannons and infantry with drums form a cordon around the tree. The infantry are herding flocks of livestock away from the caged men. Three men are feeding them fish by passing them through the bars of the cage with sticks. One of the caged men holds a paper that says, "They cried unto the Lord in their Trouble & he saved them out of their Distress. Psalm cvii 13." Another prisoner has a scroll named “Promises” whereas a man outside the cage has a document saying, “To _ from the Committee of __.” A fleet of ships looms on the horizon.

The original manuscript has not survived, so this is a transcription of a handwritten letter. In it, former slave Jourdon Anderson writes “ To my old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee.” There are five paragraphs of text and a date: August 7, 1865.

Part 2:

Observe its Parts

Primary Source 1

Primary Source 2

Who wrote it or created it? Was it one person, or was it a group, like an organization?

(HINT: You may need to use the internet to help you research these questions, and the rest of the questions in Part 2.)

Philip Dawe created the image and it was printed by a London printseller, R. Sayer and J. Bennett.

Former slave Jourdon Anderson wrote this letter.

When was it made?

The image displays a date of November 19, 1774.

August 7, 1865.

What are two things you know about the personal background or beliefs of the person or group who created it? (4-5 sentences)

We may infer information about Philip Dawe from the image. First, Dawe likely sought to portray the colonists of Massachusetts as lawbreakers whose disruptive actions earned their imprisonment. The caged crowd is in a hunger-driven frenzy, two men are fighting over a fish, and the cage hanging from the Liberty Tree resembles a gallows.

However, even if Dawe disagreed with their message, the image leaves open the possibility that Dawe sympathized with the colonists’ cause. The caption “The Bostonians in Distress” seems to ask viewers to identify with the prisoners. Dawe’s inclusion of the Bible verse seems to give the caged men a sense of religious authority.

Jourdon Anderson states he was the slave of Colonel P.H. Anderson (hereafter referred to as “the colonel”). Anderson was enslaved for 32 years but “got my free papers in 1864” from the United States Provost-Marshal General in Tennessee. Jourdon Anderson’s last name is the same as the colonel’s, probably indicating that he adopted or was assigned his master’s last name while enslaved. Anderson has nothing but scorn for slavery and his former master, stating, “We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers.” Further, Anderson now lives in Dayton, Ohio. His letter conveys that he values what the North offers: freedom, paid employment (as opposed to unfree labor), respect for his wife or partner, and a good life and education for his three children.

Was the source meant to be public or private? If public, who do you think was the intended audience? (4-5 sentences)

Given that the image appeared in a London newspaper, it was meant to be public and reach a wide readership of literate people. The intended audience could include the general public, members of Parliament, colonial administrators and other officials involved in making decisions for Britain’s North American colonies.

The source is addressed to Anderson’s “old master” in 1865. However, it was republished the same year in Lydia Maria Child’s The Freedmen’s Book. This probably indicates that Anderson intended the letter for wider circulation to prove a point about slavery, especially since Lydia Maria Child was a well-known abolitionist.

Part 3:

Interpret the Meaning (Historical Context)

Primary Source 1

Primary Source 2

Describe two other things that were happening at the time the source was created. (4-5 sentences)

(Careful! In some cases, this could be different from the time the source describes or portrays.)

1 - Coercive Acts

To protest “taxation without representation” and the 1773 Tea Act, colonists dumped tea worth £10,000 into Boston Harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party. In response, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774 to block Boston Harbor off from trade and force the Massachusetts colonial government to answer to Crown officials. The fleet of ships in the image could represent British ships enforcing this blockade. In reaction to the Coercive Acts, colonists formed a Continental Congress composed of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies. The Continental Congress boycotted imported British goods, sent a formal protest to King George III against the Coercive Acts, and took steps toward the raising of militias if the British military tried to use arms to force colonists to accept imported goods.

2 - The Boston Blockade

British General Thomas Gage set up a military headquarters in Boston in May 1774 with 3,500 troops and began seizing weapons the colonists had stockpiled. The presence of these troops in Boston can be seen in the image. Tensions between the British soldiers and the colonists were high. Finally, conflict between colonists and British troops broke out in Lexington and Concord in 1775 when colonists attacked a patrol of Gage’s troops moving from Boston to Concord, Massachusetts.

When the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed slaves in Confederate territory, thousands of slaves claimed their freedom and fled to federal troops in the South to get their free papers. These runaways who came under the protection of federal troops were known as “contrabands.”

The year 1865 is also regarded as the beginning of Reconstruction, the period of rebuilding the former Confederacy and re-incorporating it into the United States following the war. The Civil War ended in April 1865, four months before Anderson’s letter. The Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States was proposed in January 1865 and ratified in December of that year.

How does that context (or background information) help you understand why it was created? (4-5 sentences)

This contextual evidence indicates that Dawe used specific figures in the image to depict events and people in 1774 in Massachusetts. First, the image represents General Gage’s military occupation of Boston. The drilling infantry, cannons and ships represent Gage’s blockade and his strategy to block the colonists from smuggling tea in and out of Boston. The infantry have flocks of livestock with them, again likely representing Gage’s decision to blockade Boston and starve out colonial resistors. Second, the men feeding fish through the cage are probably other colonists trying to aid the hungry Bostonians trapped by the blockade. The cage symbolizes the blockade itself and the imposition of a royal governor (Gage) on Massachusetts. Taken as a whole, this information suggests Dawe was trying to show his audience the dire situation in Boston.

Anderson states that he got his “free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville,” suggesting he may have run away from the colonel as a contraband. This is also suggested by the fact that the colonel shot twice at Anderson before he left. But Anderson wrote from Dayton, Ohio, where he lived with his partner Mandy. Anderson uses the letter to contrast the relative freedom he has enjoyed in the North with the unpaid toil he was subjected to in the colonel’s household, stating, “as to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score.” As a former slave who now lives in the free North, Anderson depicts the life of a slave as one of subjection, violence, and shame, whereas the North offers the chance to attend church and school and find meaningful work.