Map of Slave owning states
Slavery is a very disturbing yet fascinating issue to study. The readings on slavery seem to be very structured and formulaic, and the slave community is transformed into an object. They present to you, the topic of slavery in a scholarly way while showing you how it relate to entire United States.
On the other hand the web site visited, “Slavery in New York” creates a more interactive learning experience, helping you to break down slavery into individuals, thus allowing you to relate to specific people. Urban culture in New York was not linear; it was a web of events that influence each other on a continual basis. This exhibition, like a museum, will allow you to view documents and reenactments, in combination with multi-media, giving you the big picture.
The authors and website designer in my opinion did achieve their goals. Even though the readings tended to harp on specifics, like the idea of hope within the slave and African American community, and the web site give poses a broader view, both are effective in translating the history of slaves in New York. Both sources demonstrate the hypocrisy of slavery in a “free” country and also showed contributions made by slaves and free African Americans.
I definitely agree with your point that interaction when learning is key to the “big picture”. This puts things into a new perspective on a very important time period in American history. I especially found the interaction and multi-media of the website to help me learn new and refresh old aspects of slavery from my previous years of academia. This interaction also allows the viewer to associate factual statement to images, therefore helping to retain the information.