ipl-logo

Historical Document Analysis: The Life Of Matilda Brooks

845 Words4 Pages

The historical document I choose to do an analysis over is wrote about the life of a women named Matilda Brooks. She was born a slave in either 1857 or 1858 in Edgefield, S.C. Her parents were Hawkins and Harriet Knox who were slaves to the Governor Frank Pickens. As soon as Matilda was old enough to work, she was in the fields with her parents: picking and tending to cotton, corn, potatoes, peas, and wheat. Slave owner Frank Pickens was described as a good man who treated his slaves well. This document is important for two reasons, the first reason is with Matilda’s story the reader is able to place a name to the countless stories we have all heard about in history class. Second her story doesn’t end when she gains her freedom, she continues …show more content…

At the time, this biography was written Matilda Brooks was a 79-year-old living in Monticello Florida. She was born a slave, lived to see the end of slavery and she got the chance to live out the rest of her life as a free woman. Since the document is a biography, it’s about the way she saw things as they were happening specifically to her from her point of view. That what makes this document that much more real, because it lets the audience see life through her eyes. As she describes things like her diet consisting largely of potatoes, corn bread, syrup, and occasionally meat. Along with stories about of her mother weaving clothes and how the children were allowed to play in the evenings after they were done helping in the field. These stories make this document real and relatable to someone reading about her today, making her message …show more content…

Matilda continues on telling the reader that her parents ended up getting jobs as house servants, while she got the chance to attend school. She talks about how when she started school her teachers were predominantly white, and over time that changed as more African Americans became educated. Her parent became involved in politics and churches began to open up with African American preachers. Matilda is trying to prove in her biography that her family grew from being a slave. Matilda is just one example of the thousands of slaves who were freed. I think that Matilda achieved her goal of proving how strong these former slavers will power truly was. She did this not by tell some compelling reasoning, but by simply telling her story, the

Show More
Related
137 Words | 1 Pages

“The Case of Susan B. Anthony” by L.D. Blake is a document detailing a person fighting for women’s right to vote. It’s evident that she feels empowered by what Susan has accomplished. The author states in Par. 10 “Such courage and energy as hers deserve admiration, and what is more support” ,moreover, in the third paragraph, the sentence “The United States Authorities have, however, pursued these women with may almost be styled virulence.”. The importance of these quotes is evident in the way the author wrote them.

Read More
245 Words | 1 Pages

A slave, Betty Abernathy’s, account of plantation life, “We lived up in Perry County. The white folk had a nice big house an’ they was a number of poor little cabins fo’ us folks. Our’s was a one room, built of logs, an’ had a puncheon floor. ‘Ole ‘Massa’ had a number of slaves but we didden have no school, ‘ner church an’ mighty little merry-makin’. Mos’ly we went barefooted the yeah ‘round.”

Read More
426 Words | 2 Pages

Have you ever faced a life changing experience in your life. Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson, and “The Father of Chinese Aviation” by Rebecca Maksel. Jackie robinson, Melba beals, and Feng ru faced life changing experiences that changed their life and country. Melba pattillo beals helped african american children get the education that they needed.

Read More
334 Words | 2 Pages

After reading “The View From the Bottom Rail,” explore the CD-ROM on that chapter. Write one or two paragraphs about any insight, discoveries, or items of interest in relation to the topic of slavery. In addition, write another paragraph about the methodological challenges of doing interviews and the things one must keep in mind when reading history that includes interviews. Provide feedback to at least two classmates’ responses. I found it interesting that analogy that there are a top and bottom rails of society.

Read More
913 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party, by MT Anderson, follows a young boy named Octavian. This book is set in Boston in the 1700s. As a 13-year-old, Octavian’s mother is bought as a slave by Mr. Gitney, the head of the college, as a 2-for-1 deal. Mr. Gitney is conducting an experiment at his college, the College of Lucidity. He is trying to figure out if an African American could be as intelligent as white royalty if they are provided with the same education.

Read More
1866 Words | 8 Pages

Rhetorical Situation The rhetorical situation hides in the shadows of literacy in all respects. To average readers, it does not come into the light. An accomplished and active reader sees through the haze to reveal the beautiful blend of literacy. Context, author, audience, and subject comprise

Read More
1414 Words | 6 Pages

Both Lucy Cobb Institute and Spelman Seminary are representations of the attempts to prepare southern women and girls for the New Century by using different philosophies created by the founders of each institution. Both institutions differentiated in the types of students that attended as well as the motivations of the students. Race, class, and ideology shaped secondary education, as well as how women saw their responsibilities as "leaders of their race". In Leaders of their Race, written by Sarah H. Case, the idea of race, respectability, and sexuality in Women's Education is thoroughly explored. Although each of the institutions sought out to mold young women to fit the new century, there were many differences in things such as their education.

Read More
460 Words | 2 Pages

Daisy Bates was an African American civil rights activist and newspaper publisher who documented the battle to end segregation in Arkansas .She married Journalist Christopher Bates and they operated a weekly African-American newspaper, the Arkansas State Press, Bates became president of Arkansas chapter of the NAACP and played a crucial role in the fight against segregation, which she documented in her book “The Long Of Little Rock.” She died in 1999. Her mother was sexually assaulted and murdered by three white men and her father left her. As a teenager,bates met Lucious Christopher “L.C.” Bates, an insurance agent and an experienced journalist.

Read More
486 Words | 2 Pages

After having read both Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Harriet Jacobs’s Incident 1. How were Douglass and Jacobs similar and different in their complaints against slavery? What accounts for these differences? In both the inspiring narratives of Narrative in the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Frederick Douglass’s and in Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs the respective authors demonstrate the horrors and disparity of slavery in there own ways.

Read More
1157 Words | 5 Pages

Fredric Douglass wrote, “What to the Slave is Fourth of July” in 1852. In this speech to the American public, Douglass states how great of a country American “was” and how great the forefathers “were”. In contrast to those statements he professes his reasoning for freeing slaves. However, Mary Rowlandson wrote, “A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” in 1682. This captive narrative takes place during the King Philips war, and depicts how the native Americans treated their prisoners of war.

Read More
526 Words | 3 Pages

The Narrative of Frederick Douglass is a very great perspective for people of today to understand what it was like to be a slave in the 1800’s. It tells the story of the slave Frederick Douglass and how he began as an uneducated slave and was moved around from many different types of owners, cruel or nice, and how his and other slaves presences changed the owners, and also how he educated himself and realized that he shouldn’t be treated so poorly It was at the point later in the book that I realized how some slaves might have felt during slavery in the 1800’s. When Douglass is sent away to Mr.Covey he is treated pretty badly but eventually he stands up to Mr.Covey and demands that he stopped being treated like an animal.

Read More
814 Words | 4 Pages

In the 1700-1800’s, the use of African American slaves for backbreaking, unpaid work was at its prime. Despite the terrible conditions that slaves were forced to deal with, slave owners managed to convince themselves and others that it was not the abhorrent work it was thought to be. However, in the mid-1800’s, Northern and southern Americans were becoming more aware of the trauma that slaves were facing in the South. Soon, an abolitionist group began in protest, but still people doubted and questioned it.

Read More
752 Words | 4 Pages

Everyday, she excels in her job of caring for the children and making a difference in the community. Due to her kindness she would always bring thoughtful gifts for the children. She doesn 't have to do the classes with the children everyday but she continues to do it like Sylvia says “school supposed to let out in the summer I heard, but she dont never let up” (Bambara 96). The lessons learned while earning her degree has lead her to becoming a positive role model in the children 's lives; nonetheless, teaching them lessons that may never learn from others. She shows her passion in the story by saying “she said, it was only her right that she take responsibility for the young ones’ education.

Read More
432 Words | 2 Pages

In this document analysis I chose, was about Elizabeth Springs who was an indentured servant in Maryland who wrote a letter to her father who lived in England. She writes to her father stating that she hopes that she could come back home, and that she forgives him for all the wrong he had done. She explains to him that she is living miserably day and night and being treated like an animal. The beat and rape her. Her lack of not eating, not having much clothing, or shoes, she feels like she is being mistreated worse than black people.

Read More
871 Words | 4 Pages

Maud Martha is a novel by African-American poet Gwendolyn Brooks, her only work of prose fiction. First published in 1953, it follows the titular character Maud Martha as she grows from childhood to womanhood in a majority African-American neighborhood in Chicago over short vignettes. The story is loosely autobiographical from Brooks’ personal experiences. Written in a nonlinear narrative that uses poetic language over thirty-four short chapters, it explores themes of grief, love, loss, race, and the everyday indignities of urban life. It has been praised for its experimental writing style, as well as for its relatable lead character and the detailed way it describes everyday life in poetic language.

Read More

More about Historical Document Analysis: The Life Of Matilda Brooks

Related Topics

Open Document