ASH3002y Reading Assignment
February 8, 1999

The Chesapeake: Tobacco and the Resort to Slavery

Required Readings:

John Smith, The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, Ch. 2, "What Happened Until the First Supply" in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 105-113.

William Byrd, From The Secret Diary and History of the Dividing Line, in  The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 422-439.

Thomas Jefferson, Queries V, VI, XVII, XIX  from Notes on the State of Virginia, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 720-730; plus Query XIV (with particular attention to laws related to slavery) on reserve in one of the editions of Jefferson's writings.

Olaudah Equiano, From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 751-786.

Recommended Secondary Readings:

Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia
(Norton, 1975)

T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes, "Myne Owne Ground" Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern
Shore, 1640-1676 (Oxford,1980)