Course: U.S. History to 1877 (HIST 1301) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Hartwell
Module: Week 3 of 16 · Fall 2026 · in-person, two 75-minute sessions
Objectives covered: Objective 3 — explain how distinct colonial societies developed in British North America, and analyze how the Atlantic slave trade and colonial law produced a system of hereditary racial slavery.

This file holds two pieces: (A) the Module 3 Overview page ("Start Here") and (B) the Welcome Announcement that drips out when the module opens. Dates below assume a Tuesday/Thursday pattern with Week 3 meeting Tue Sep 15 and Thu Sep 17, with end-of-week work due Sunday Sep 20, 11:59 p.m.

(A) Module 3 Overview — Start Here

Welcome to Week 3: Colonial Society & the Origins of Slavery

This is your home base for the week. Read it first, then work the checklist below from top to bottom.

Last week we compared the English colonies. This week we follow one of the most consequential threads in all of American history: how the English colonies built a labor system, and why that system became hereditary racial slavery. The answer isn't simple — it involved economics, law, rebellion, and deliberate choices made by colonial legislatures over decades. We'll also meet the Atlantic slave trade and its human cost through the firsthand account of Olaudah Equiano, and we'll close with the First Great Awakening, a religious revival that cut across colonial boundaries.

This is a week where the history is hard and the stakes are real. We work through it factually, with gravity, centered on the evidence.

The week's big question

"How did slavery shift from a labor status to a hereditary, racial caste — and who made that happen, through which specific laws and decisions?"

By the end of the week you'll be able to trace the legal steps that turned a labor system into racial slavery, explain the Atlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage, read Equiano's testimony as a primary source (including the scholarly debate about his own origins), and place the First Great Awakening in colonial history — without confusing it with the Second Great Awakening a century later.

By the end of this week, you can…

• [ ] Explain the shift from indentured servitude to enslaved labor in the Chesapeake, including the role of Bacon's Rebellion (1676) in accelerating that shift.
• [ ] Name the key legal steps that built hereditary racial slavery: the Virginia 1662 partus sequitur ventrem law, and the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.
• [ ] Describe the Atlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage, drawing on Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789) as a firsthand account.
• [ ] Apply the corroboration move to Equiano's narrative, including the scholarly debate (Vincent Carretta) over his birthplace — and explain why that debate matters for sourcing without discrediting his testimony.
• [ ] Identify the First Great Awakening (1730s–1740s; Whitefield, Edwards) and distinguish it from the Second Great Awakening (which comes in Week 10).

What's due this week, and when

Work these in order.

Heads-up: the Tutorial and the Workshop both ask you to run an AI-critique moment — give the chatbot a historical claim and then check it against the sources. Chatbots routinely misquote Equiano, misdate the Virginia laws, or confuse the First and Second Great Awakenings. Catching those errors is the point.

Late policy reminder: 10% off per day late. If life happens, reach out before the deadline.

How to succeed this week

• Follow the law. The shift to racial slavery happened through specific legal acts. Know the dates: 1662, 1676, 1705. Know what each one did.
• Don't both-sides the facts. Scholars debate why racial slavery emerged (economic, ideological, demographic); they do not debate that it was deliberately constructed through law. Keep those two levels of question separate.
• Source Equiano carefully. His Narrative is one of the most powerful primary accounts of the Middle Passage. The scholarly debate about his birthplace is a corroboration lesson, not a reason to doubt what he describes.
• Lock in the Great Awakening distinction. First = 1730s–1740s (Whitefield, Edwards). Second = early 19th century (Week 10). This is one of the course's most common exam traps.

(B) Welcome Announcement — Module 3

Release setting: post on the module's start day, i.e., Mon Sep 14, 2026 (one day before first class meeting). If your platform won't preserve the scheduled date on import, post this as a draft labeled "Release: Mon Sep 14."

Subject: Week 3 — How slavery became permanent and racial

Hi everyone,

This week we tackle one of the most consequential — and deliberately engineered — transformations in American history: how a labor system became a racial caste.

In the early Chesapeake, both white indentured servants and enslaved Africans worked the tobacco fields, and their legal statuses were not yet fixed. Over the course of the 1600s and into the 1700s, colonial legislatures made a series of decisions that closed that door permanently: the 1662 Virginia law making the status of a child follow the mother's, the aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion (1676), and the comprehensive Virginia Slave Codes of 1705. We'll trace those steps.

We'll also read the voice of someone who was enslaved. Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789) is one of the most important firsthand accounts of the Middle Passage ever written. We'll read it as historians — sourcing it, contextualizing it, and engaging a genuine scholarly debate (did Equiano write from memory of Africa, or was he born in South Carolina?). That debate is a corroboration lesson, and it deepens rather than dismisses his testimony.

And we'll close with the First Great Awakening — the 1730s–1740s religious revival led by George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, which spread across colonial lines. You'll need to keep this First Great Awakening separate from the Second Great Awakening (early 19th century), which comes in Week 10.

Three things not to miss:
1. Primary Source Workshop 3 — this is the heart of the week. Read Equiano carefully before you start; it's linked in the readings.
2. Quiz 3 will test whether you know the specific laws and their dates (1662, 1705), the role of Bacon's Rebellion (1676), and the First-vs.-Second Great Awakening distinction.
3. Assignment 3 — a short document-based argument using an Equiano excerpt and a slave-law excerpt. The sources are embedded in the assignment prompt; quote only from those.

This is history that should be taken seriously and understood precisely. The facts matter — and you'll leave this week knowing them.

See you Tuesday,
Prof. Hartwell