Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Antislavery White Supremacists And The Mistreatment Of African Americans In Indiana, 1787-1870, Mark A. King

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Conventional wisdom holds that Indiana was always predominantly antislavery because it had begun as a territory of the United States under the Northwest Territory Act of 1787, which prohibited slavery; however, this is incorrect. This northern state had about as much proslavery sentiment as most states in the South. The state wrestled with the issue in the legislative session after the legislative session and court case after court case for decades during the antebellum period. Prominent settlers and state organizers petitioned Congress to allow the Indiana Territory to become a slave region. After statehood, proslavery forces continued to push for …

Rachel Swarns: The 272 (Library Resources), Holy Cross Libraries

Library Resources for Campus Events

A bibliography of resources available through the Holy Cross Libraries which provide additional information related to "Rachel Swarns: The 272," a discussion with Rachel Swarms, President Vincent D. Rougeau, Board of Trustees Chair Helen W. Boucher, M.D. '86, and Jesuit Provincial Joseph M. O'Keefe, S.J., '76. Swarms is associate professor of journalism at New York Universityand the author of The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church

This event was sponsored by the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, and was held at the College of the Holy Cross on March 20, …

Toward A Better Criminal Legal System: Improving Prisons, Prosecution, And Criminal Defense, David A. Harris, Created And Presented Jointly By Students From State Correctional Institution - Greene, Waynesburg, Pa, And University Of Pittsburgh School Of Law, Chief Editor: David A. Harris

Articles

During the Fall 2023 semester, 15 law (Outside) students from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and 13 incarcerated (Inside) students from the State Correctional Institution – Greene, in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, took a full semester class together called Issues in Criminal Justice and Law. The class, occurring each week at the prison, utilized the Inside-Out Prison Exchange pedagogy, and was facilitated by Professor David Harris. Subjects include the purposes of prison, addressing crime, the criminal legal system and race, and issues surrounding victims and survivors of crime. The course culminated in a Group Project; under the heading “improving the …

Rethinking Antebellum Bankruptcy, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

Bankruptcy law has been repeatedly reinvented over time in response to changing circumstances. The Bankruptcy Act of 1841—passed by Congress to address the financial ruin caused by the Panic of 1837—constituted a revolutionary break from its immediate predecessor, the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, which was the nation’s first bankruptcy statute. Although Congress repealed the 1841 Act in 1843, the legislation lasted significantly longer than recognized by scholars. The repeal legislation permitted pending bankruptcy cases to be finally resolved pursuant to the Act’s terms. Because debtors flooded the judicially understaffed 1841 Act system with over 46,000 cases, the Act’s administration continued …

A Phenomenological Approach: How Hopelessness Affects Achievement In The Areas Of Socio-Economic, Criminality, And Educational Success Within The African American Community, Shawn A. Parker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This phenomenological study was designed to examine how the concept of hope or lack thereof has an impact on the negative discrepancies in the areas of education, criminal behavior, and socio-economic status among African Americans as it compares to Whites. There may be other ethnicities who have significant inconsistencies as well, but for the sack of this study, the comparisons were primarily among African Americans and Whites. The theory guiding this study is the psychodynamic approach. This approach was guided by Sigmond Freud’s desire to understand human behavior; provided a path to studying the events of the past and present …

From Periphery To Center: Re-Presenting Black And Afro-Arab Characters In Contemporary Arabic Literature, Samer Ahmad Mayyas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Black Arabs and Afro-Arabs tend not to be centered in Arabic discourse, especially modern Arabic literature, and Black people of other ethnicities are marginalized, as if Black peoples and Afro-Arabs were not part of the history and present-day of the Arabic-speaking world. I explore in this dissertation project the representations and experiences of Black and Afro-Arabs in contemporary Arabic fictional narratives. I argue that the contemporary literary era sees a shift in re-presenting Black peoples and Afro-Arabs in the Arabic fictional discourse. By moving Black and Afro-Arab characters from periphery to center, contemporary Arab writers challenge and disrupt, in an …

Taking Dominion To End Dominion: The Mennonite Influence On The End Of Russian Serfdom, H. Michael Shultz Jr.

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Serfdom in Russia was abolished in 1861, only 76 years after the first Mennonites were invited into Russia by Catherine II. By examining the lifestyle of the Mennonites who settled in the agriculturally productive “New Russia” (modern-day Ukraine), as well as the impact that the Mennonites had on the Imperial family, peasantry, and government, it is evident that the Mennonites played a recognizable role in bringing about the abolition of serfdom across the empire.

“Provisioned, Produced, Procured,” And Purchased?: A Macrobotanical Study Of Enslaved Individuals’ Economic Engagement In The Shenandoah Valley, Linda A. Seminario

Graduate Masters Theses

This research investigates enslaved peoples’ economic engagement in the Shenandoah Valley during the first half of the 19th century. In 2017, archaeologists excavated two features at the Belle Grove enslaved quarters in Middletown, Virginia— a root cellar and subfloor pit that were filled in when a log cabin burned down. The preservation of the macrobotanicals has allowed for an in-depth analysis of the plants with which enslaved individuals engaged and the relationship between plant acquisition and enslaved people’s regional formal economic involvement at a 19th-century plantation in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. These data sets have also allowed for an …

Black Maternal Mortality: A Result Of The Haunting Past, Jaylynn Arnold

Global Honors Theses

Throughout history, Black women have been treated as less than human in a variety of traumatic ways for generations, all of which have negatively affected the physical and emotional well-being of free and enslaved Black women. This consisted of being victims of medical abuse, sexual abuse, degrading stereotypes, and the right to easily access basic human needs such as quality healthcare. Current research has shown that within the United States, Black women have the highest rate of maternal mortality than any other ethnicity of women especially when compared to white women. Being that 84% of these maternal deaths are preventable, …

African American Women And Social Support Networks To Overcome The Strong Black Woman Schema And Depression, Teia Jelisia D. Clements

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mental illness disorders within the United States are on the rise. Researchers have indicated that African Americans are less likely to seek mental health compared to European Americans. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand how social support networks influence African American women between the ages of 25 and 50 in addressing the strong Black woman (SBW) schema and depression. A conceptual framework consisting of the SBW collective theory guided the study. A purposive sample of 16 African American women who use social support networks to address the SBW schema and depression was obtained through flyers posted …

African American Women And Social Support Networks To Overcome The Strong Black Woman Schema And Depression, Teia Jelisia D. Clements

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mental illness disorders within the United States are on the rise. Researchers have indicated that African Americans are less likely to seek mental health compared to European Americans. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand how social support networks influence African American women between the ages of 25 and 50 in addressing the strong Black woman (SBW) schema and depression. A conceptual framework consisting of the SBW collective theory guided the study. A purposive sample of 16 African American women who use social support networks to address the SBW schema and depression was obtained through flyers posted …

Digital Library Of Georgia (September 2022), Mandy L. Mastrovita

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Freyre’S Plantation Playground: The Changing Landscape Of The Sugar Plantation Monjope, Catherine Elizabeth Lavoy

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation investigates the changing landscape of the sugar plantation Monjope in Pernambuco, Brazil from the mid-seventeenth to the end of the twentieth century. I examine this plantation’s changing landscape as part of a number of larger social, economic and environmental forces; in particular the development of racially based labor. Established in the sixteenth century, Monjope was one of the many Brazilian sugar plantations that relied on African slavery for labor until the end of the nineteenth century. I argue the plantation’s built environment in conjunction with the larger plantation landscape was part of a global trend of controlling labor …

An Angry Shepherd: Sudanese Bishop Macram Max Gassis, John Ashworth

The Journal of Social Encounters

Bishop Macram Max Gassis is a near-legendary figure in Sudan since he first spoke out against human rights abuses in his country before a committee of the US Congress in 1988. Targeted by the Islamist military dictatorship which ruled Sudan for thirty years, for protesting enslavement, religious oppression, forced starvation and mass murder in Sudan, he lives in exile, bringing help and hope to his persecuted people.

This essay is condensed from the 2021 book by the same author with the same title.

The Influence Of Reparations, Internalized Oppression, And Racial Centrality Across Systemic And Psychological Factors Concerning The African American Community, Aimee L. Ford

The Scholarship Without Borders Journal

The purpose of this paper was to utilize the literature to better understand how reparations have a causal effect on, (a) internalized oppression; (b) racial centrality; (c) systemic inequity; and (d) mental health outcomes within the African American community. Reparations are examined through both monetary gains and the significance of societal recognition of the history of African chattel slavery. In addition, the White versus African American wealth gap is utilized to display the relationship between unpaid reparations and contemporary economic oppression. The findings illustrate the causal effects of unpaid reparations that were demonstrated throughout the literature to have negative consequences …

By Her Hands: An Analysis Of The Hidden Labor Of Black Women At The Hugh Craft House Site In Holly Springs, Mykayla Williamson

Honors Theses

This project unearths the hidden labor of Black women by analyzing architectural remains, artifacts, and primary and secondary documentary evidence surrounding the urban antebellum Hugh Craft House site in Holly Springs, Mississippi. This project considers the gap in theorizing the hidden labor of Black women in the seldom-researched setting of urban slavery. It also draws on household and Black feminist archaeology theories to uncover the hidden labor in the domestic spheres that the enslaved women were actively shaping. Research methods included watching clips of Behind the Big House tour interpretations; taking a Craft House tour in Holly Springs; looking at …

Slavery, Work, And History: Du Bois’S Black Marxism, Amy Allen

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Environmental Repercussions Of The Strange Fruit: The Implications Of Our Enslavement On Modern Black Experiences With Nature, Indya Woodfolk

Honors Theses

When I was nine years old my dad often took me hiking at “Rosaryville State Park” in Maryland. Sometimes we would ride bikes, other times we would walk the trail and become mesmerized by the sounds and sights of nature. We would run down the path, play iSpy, or tell stories and sing songs. The trail led to an open field with acres of land in the distance. The only presence there was my dad, the trees, and me. We would take out our 7/11 sandwiches, sit on the ground, and enjoy our time together. It wasn't until I was …

Slavery, Colonialism, And Other Ghosts: Presence And Absence In The Rise Of American Sociology, 1895-1905, Aaron Yates

Masters Theses

US sociology has historically denied slavery and colonialism as demanding of sociological study. The roots of this can be examined at the turn of the twentieth century in the early years of the institutionalization of the discipline in American universities. The inattention stems from a white supremacist racial ontology that underpins US sociology in general (embedded in the category of modernity and the category of sociology itself). There are traces or identifiable ‘moments of silencing’ during the first ten years of the American Journal of Sociology (AJS), the discipline’s first professional journal in the US, in which early (white) sociologists …

The Architecture And Landscape Of Slavery In Fredericksburg, Virginia, Douglas W. Sanford

Northeast Historical Archaeology

The African Americans who endured institutional enslavement played a critical role in the history of Fredericksburg from its 18^th-century founding to its Civil War era turmoil. Only recently have historians, archaeologists, and architectural historians brought scholarly and more public attention to bear on the people who comprised over a third of the city’s population as well as its main labor force. Surprisingly little archaeological work on slave-related sites and structures has occurred. This research relies on a combination of architectural and documentary evidence to visualize slavery’s built environment in Fredericksburg as well as the demographic and cultural parameters …

A Language For The World: The Standardization Of Swahili, Morgan J. Robinson

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

This intellectual history of Standard Swahili explores the long-term, intertwined processes of standard making and community creation in the historical, political, and cultural contexts of East Africa and beyond.

Morgan J. Robinson argues that the portability of Standard Swahili has contributed to its wide use not only across the African continent but also around the globe. The book pivots on the question of whether standardized versions of African languages have empowered or oppressed. It is inevitable that the selection and promotion of one version of a language as standard—a move typically associated with missionaries and colonial regimes—negatively affected those …

Black Athletes And White Authority Figures: An Exploration Of Race In Sports, Lucian Tseckares

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Abraham Lincoln: Thoughts On Slavery And Racial Equality, Abraham Scofield

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

Looking at the political thought of Abraham Lincoln, two major themes arise: slavery and racial equality. Development of his thought on these subjects spanned his entire life and is revealed through his speeches, public statements, and written works. With the sheer amount of thought that Lincoln dedicated to these subjects, it can be difficult to decipher where he truly stood on these issues. To come to a more concrete understanding of Lincoln’s thought regarding these subjects, this article offers multiple interpretations of each of these themes. Concerning Lincoln’s thought on slavery, three interpretations arise: the Anti-Expansion interpretation, the Moral Opposition …

Physical Spaces In The Digital Age: Legacies, Narratives, And Memory Of Plantation History, Em Miller

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In recent years, plantation tourism has become a prominent concern for many researchers, with studies being done on how plantations use these sites and the ways that they incorporate enslavement into their narratives as a historical site. The current research used a textual analysis approach to explore the themes and language that plantations use when discussing enslavement via the analysis of 16 plantations in nine states. There are three themes that are apparent in the plantations analyzed: the visibility of Enslaved history, the promotion or rejection of Lost Cause memory, and the use of plantations as event spaces. While many …

Johnson V. M'Intosh: Christianity, Genocide, And The Dispossession Of Indigenous Peoples, Cynthia J. Boshell

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Using hermeneutical methodology, this paper examines some of the legal fictions that form the foundation of Federal Indian Law. The text of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1823 Johnson v. M’Intosh opinion is evaluated through the lens of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to determine the extent to which the Supreme Court incorporated genocidal principles into United States common law. The genealogy of M’Intosh is examined to identify influences that are not fully apparent on the face of the case. International jurisprudential interpretations of the legal definition of genocide are summarized and used as …

A Dance Of Shadows And Fires: Conceptual And Practical Challenges Of Intergenerational Healing After Mass Atrocity, Brandon Hamber, Ingrid Palmary

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The legacy of mass atrocity—including colonialism, slavery or specific manifestations such as apartheid—continue long after their demise. Applying a temporal intergenerational lens adds complications. We argue that mass atrocity creates for subsequent generations a deep psychological rupture akin to witnessing past atrocities. This creates a moral liability in the present. Healing is a process dependent on the authenticity (evident in discourse and action) with which we address contemporary problems. A further overriding task is to open social and political space for divergent voices. Acknowledgement of mass atrocity requires more than one-off events or institutional responses (the grand apology, the truth …

Evaluation Of The Federal Writers' Project, Brenna M. Hadley

Student Publications

This essay examines an interview with a former slave, Sarah Graves. The interview is a product of the Federal Writers' Project, a government funded program created during the Great Depression. I address the possible problems that arise when working with this type of memory source (an interview), and how to work around them. This essay also ponders the reasoning why certain bits of information were included in the interview, and why others were excluded.

Manumission In Virginia: The Anti-Slavery Legacy Of John Lynch, Stephen Langeland

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

This paper is in no way an apology for the institution of slavery in any form. In fact, it is a reiteration of Biblical doctrine and natural rights philosophy that posit all humans are created equal. The institution of slavery knew few bounds throughout recorded history and was as ubiquitous and durable as the activities of marriage or warfare, practiced by every culture and religion (Drescher 2009, 7-8, 12-39). Biblical text is devoid of specific prohibition against slavery, a fact sadly used as justification for its continuation. The Quakers, however, were one of the few religious groups who invoked Scriptural …

Review Of Building Peace In America, Chris Hausmann, Ron Pagnucco

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Covid-19 Outcomes And The Incidence Of Slavery, Amanda Ortega

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Environmental factors have been shown to correlate with COVID-19 outcomes. This study advances the literature on health economics by examining the importance of socioeconomic factors. In addition to standard economic factors, I consider the relationship between the past incidence of slavery and COVID-19 outcomes. I analyze county-level U.S. Census data and Georgia Department of Public Health county-level COVID-19 data using regression analysis. I find that the Covid-19 county vaccination rate in Georgia is related to 1860 slave concentration. No statistically significant relationship is found between 1860 slave concentration and COVID-19 death rate, case rate, or vaccination rate when health, socioeconomic, …