Kalen+Whitehead-+Childbirth

S: This is a letter written from Mr. Lewellyn to Mr. Cameron. Lewellyn mentions childbirth as just another part of the harvest. He is mostly discussing how well his crops are growing and giving a nice up-to-date to Mr. Cameron.
 * Classworks3: Childbirth **
 * ** Source 1: Lewellyn, 1845-05-11 **

C: Again, the letter comes from Mr. Lewellyn. He is writing from Greene County, Alabama. This letter was written in mid-May. If a person reading this letter knew anything about crops they would be able to better understand how the crops should look at this time of the year. The letter mentions the city of Greensboro, where one of their runaways were caught. This says a lot about how far this slave got. It also acknowledges the fact that Greensboro is an important city on the map of the south.

I: From this source, I can gather that childbirth of the slaves is not very important to their slave masters. It can also be gathered that the women who experience childbirth are not well taken care of during the process. I would also assume that the slave masters do not like their slave women having a lot of children because it takes away from their labor time.

M: Now, because I am assuming the two women mentioned in this text are slaves, it would be helpful to get a better image/description of who these women really are. It would also be beneficial if the man writing this letter would be a little more detailed in his description of the process surrounding childbirth during this time. Were there doctors? Was there a lot of child death during this time period? || S: This source is a letter. It is written to Mr. Cameron, again. It is a very short letter communicating what the crops look like on the plantation in Alabama. It mentions three names and says they are sick. Then it mentions another name and says she has a “fine” son.
 * ** Source 2: Lewellyn, 1846-07-26 **

C: This source comes from Mr. Leweylln. It was written during the heat of the summer in 1846. July would have been very hot and a miserable time of the year to be doing any sort of outdoor labor, especially in Alabama where the letter is being written from.

I: It is suggested by this source that either the “fine” son the author references is either his son, or someone else’s son of white skin. You could also make the assumption that male babies are deemed most important because of the manual labor they can do later in life. Male slaves are probably more valuable because of this. I also considered that the three names he mentioned that were sick, could be referred to as being pregnant. Again, pregnancy is considered a bad thing on a plantation because it limits what the women can do.

M: There is still a lot of description missing from these letters. It would be very helpful to have a better account of the details surrounding these “sickly” named people and the “fine” son. It was also help to know what Mr. Cameron was writing back to Mr. Leweylln because it would give the audience a better insight on the relationship between these two men. || S: Yet again, another letter written to Mr. Cameron in Stagville. It has been raining a ton since the 24th of July. The rain has hurt the production of cotton, some of the cotton crops are even rotted because they couldn’t withstand the weather. However, Mr. Lewellyn seems positive that the overall harvest will be a good one. There are a lot of “sick” women. There has been a baby girl born.
 * ** Source 3: Lewellyn, 1846-08-07 **

C: This is another written from Mr. Lewellyn in Alabama. What I found to be very interesting is that this letter was sent to a post office, rather than directly to Mr. Cameron. This means there was a postal service at this time and the improvement of mail is occurring. It is not August, which seems like an odd time for a 2 weeks of rain, but maybe there was a hurricane that blew through the gulf causing the rain. A little baby girl has been born, but the author does not seem to be near as interested in her than he is with his crops.

I: We can assume the Mr. Lewellyn speaks mostly of the crops because his job would be on the line if the harvest did not go as planned. At this point it can also be assumed that Mr. Lewellyn is charge of the plantation in Alabama and he reports often to his boss Mr. Cameron. I would also make the assumption that Mr. Lewellyn references pregnancy as being a sickness.

M: I would like to see the weather reports for Alabama during this time. Like I mentioned previously, it is unlikely for Alabama to get a lot of rain like this in the heat of the summer. Therefore, the only explanation would be a hurricane of some sort. I would also like to know more about what Mr. Lewellyn is saying when he speaks of the different names and references to being sick or getting well. I can assume it means they are pregnant, but there is really no way of knowing for sure. || S: This source is once again a letter written to Mr. Cameron. It is very short and to the point. For the first time in this series of letters, the author brings up the women that are sick before he discusses the crop. There is one woman who cannot stop having chills and seems to be very bad off. The cotton crop is going to be a short one.
 * ** Source 4: Lewellyn, 1846-08-18 **

C: These series of letters are being written about every two weeks. This means the mail is probably received about once a week. It is the getting towards the end of August, so the cotton crop should be in its prime harvesting time. If a women is having chills, there is a good chance she is not going to survive whatever illness she has. The medicine and the doctors just weren’t good enough at this time and the slave masters would not have put a lot money or energy into making sure a slave was healthy. Especially if he had as many as Mr. Cameron did.

I: We can assume at this point that pregnancy happened often. There wouldn’t have been any forms of birth control at this time, except abstinence, but that was unlikely. We can infer that Mr. Cameron isn’t going to be happy about the cotton crop not turning out very well. It cost him money, and any businessman is going to get upset about something like that.

M: I would like to know more about what a stack of cotton looks like. If we had a better picture of how much the crop was worth, we might be able to understand just how much the shortened crop is going to affect the plantation. I would also like to know if these women that Mr. Lewellyn keeps mentioning are actually slaves. What does it mean if they are part of the plantation owner’s family? || S: This letter written to Mr. Cameron in Stagville is another update on the crop and the plantation as a whole. There have been two more baby girls born and a lot of sickness taking over the plantation. The crop of cotton has been ruined by worms and rain. The gins aren’t doing very considering the cotton. However, Mr. Cameron’s plantation isn’t the only one with a bad crop. All of the plantations seem to be experiencing the same issues.
 * ** Source 5: Lewellyn, 1846-08-30 **

C: It must have been just a really wet August. Which again seems to be out of the ordinary for this time of the year. The sickness that is going around it probably due to all the rain and the close quarters that everyone lives in. I also can assume that the little boy is not going to live much longer because of the sickness.

I: I can now assume that when Mr. Lewellyn references someone as being sick, he actually means they are sick. I can also infer that having little girls is not nearly as valuable as having a little boy.

M: I think it would be very interesting and helpful to have a log of childbirths occurring on the plantation. I think this would really benefit this overall investigation. ||
 * ** Corroboration: ** ||

I can assume that childbirth is an inconvenience and a hazard on a plantation. There are too many risks that can occur when a slave is pregnant and it takes away from the amount of labor they can perform.
 * 1-2 Sentence Claim about my findings: **

I really liked this tool. It made history interesting and made me feel like I was actually contributing to an investigation about the lives and events of the past. In my future classroom I would use this tool in both my language arts and social studies classrooms. For example, if I were to assign a challenging text to my students in language arts I would have them SCIM-C to better understand what they reading. In my social studies classroom, I would use this as a tool to begin my units. The students would be given primary sources to sort through surrounding certain events in history. This would allow them to dig even deeper into the past and become apart of something bigger than regurgitation of date and facts. I think it would also be a great tool to use when presenting current events. For instance, I might have my students pick a current event to write an essay on. I would then assign them primary sources based on the current event. Then we would go through these sources to develop a claim. They would then precede with writing their paper. I think there are a lot of ideas when it comes to this tool. But, I think the most important thing to remember is that this tool has to be constructed and presented in the right ways or else it is worthless. I cannot wait to utilize this tool in my future classroom.
 * Pedagogical Analysis: **