University of Maryland News

Interested in Helping UM Research its Ties to Slavery?

The History Department is recruiting top undergraduate students—both history majors and non-history majors—to help research the University of Maryland's historic ties to slavery. A two-semester seminar, Knowing Our History: African American Slavery and the University of Maryland, will be offered in the academic year 2008-2009 to investigate the University's connections to slavery by placing it in the larger framework of Atlantic history, as well as introducing students to historical research methodologies. The seminar will take place on Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m., TLF 2110.

Slavery is much in the news—in movies, TV docudramas, and museums. Slavery is much in our politics—presidential visits to old slave forts on the coast of West Africa, Congressional hearings, legislative apologies, and debates on reparations. Slavery is much on our campus. Now slavery is coming to the classroom.

·Univ. unveils plan to examine slavery [Diamondback 2.07.08]
·Staff Editorial: A new chapter in history [Diamondback 2.08.08]

The seminar, which will be divided into two three-credit courses, will explore the University's relation to slavery in the broadest context. History 429 I, offered in the fall of 2008, will introduce the best scholarship on the institution of slavery from the standpoint of world history, and from the perspective of slavery's long development from antiquity to the present. It will emphasize slavery's unique presence in mainland North America, then the United States, and finally Maryland.

The second half of the seminar, to be offered in the spring of 2009, will allow students to conduct research and will focus attention on the development of slavery in Prince George's County, the area that became College Park, the Calvert family and neighboring planters who owned the land, and the black men and women, free and slave, who worked it during the late antebellum decades. The research carried out by the students during the spring will form part of a report that will be submitted to the University on the links between the University and slavery.

Enrollment will be based on competitive application and requires permission. Thinking broadly and writing well are necessary prerequisites, as is an interest in the relationship between history and public policy. Students should also understand that this is a year-long commitment, whose demands will doubtless go beyond those of the normal three credit course. Evaluations for HIST 429I will be based on class discussions, weekly short essays on the reading assignments, and an original essay on some aspect of the history of slavery. The seminar will be team taught by Professor Ira Berlin and Mr. Herbert Brewer.

Interested students are invited and encouraged to attend a meeting with Professor Berlin and Mr. Brewer, on Wednesday, March 26, 2008, at 4:00 p.m. in Taliaferro Hall, Room 2110. Prospective students who are unable to attend should contact Brewer and Berlin directly.

For more information, contact the History Department at 301.405.0072.