Reading and Writing Workshop

Foundations of Racial Injustice
Session 1: Indigenous Dispossession and Settler Colonialism
Topics:

• Settler colonialism as a structure
• Early colonization and Native resistance
• Displacement and violence against Indigenous peoples

Key Texts/Resources:

• Excerpts from Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (for instructor-provided excerpts)
• Primary Source:
  • U.S. Congressional Document: The 1830 Indian Removal Act
    https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/indian-removal-act
• Map:
  • "Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1784–1894"
    https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwss-ilc.html

Activities:

• Analyze the language and justifications within the Indian Removal Act.
• Map Study: Trace patterns of Indigenous land dispossession and forced relocation.
• Writing Prompt: How did settler colonialism justify the removal and marginalization of Indigenous nations?

Session 2: Transatlantic Slave Trade and Chattel Slavery
Topics:

• Origins of the transatlantic slave trade
• The lived experience of enslaved Africans
• The system of chattel slavery

Key Texts/Resources:

• Primary Source:
  • The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)
    https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15399
• Map:
  • “A Map Showing the Triangular Trade”
    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Triangular_trade.png

Activities:

• Primary Source Analysis: Read and respond to an excerpt from Equiano's autobiography.
• Map Study: Trace the flow of goods and enslaved people in the transatlantic trade network.
• Reflective Writing: How did the transatlantic slave trade shape early American society?

Session 3: The Construction of Race and Racial Hierarchies
Topics:

• Race as a social construct
• Pseudo-scientific racism and early racial classifications
• The codification of racial hierarchies in colonial society

Key Texts/Resources:

• Historical Document:
  • Excerpt from Carl Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae (1758) racial classification section
    https://archive.org/details/systemanaturaepe01linn/page/20/mode/2up
• Visual:
  • “18th-century Racial Taxonomies” Illustration
    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Linnaeus_races.png

Activities:

• Discuss the evolution of racial categories and their use in justifying inequality.
• Writing Prompt: How did early racial hierarchies influence legal and cultural attitudes in colonial America?

Session 4: Early Laws Codifying Racial Difference
​Topics:

• Early legal structures supporting racial inequality
• Virginia Slave Codes (1705)
• The Indian Removal Act as racialized policy

Key Texts/Resources:

• Primary Source:
  • Excerpts from the 1705 Virginia Slave Codes
    https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/slave-codes-of-1705/
• Primary Source:
  • Indian Removal Act (1830)
    https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/indian-removal-act

Activities:

• Document Analysis: Compare the Virginia Slave Codes to the Indian Removal Act.
• Debate: Historical justifications for these laws and their legacies (students assigned roles: settler colonist, Indigenous leader, enslaved African, abolitionist, U.S. politician).
• Writing Prompt: What role did legal codifications play in solidifying racial hierarchies?

Culminating Assignment:Essay or Presentation:
“How did early colonial policies and ideologies create the foundations of systemic racial injustice in the United States?”