Wright 1

Tessa Wright
Prof. Jason Melton
ENGL 5
11 May 2016
Learning New Perspectives from Re-Writing
In Fall 2015, I took an African American Experience class which detailed African
American history from the 1600s to present. It covered the slave trade, the Atlantic Creole
generation, the plantation generation, emancipation, segregation through the Jim Crow era, and
ended with the current issues of racism exemplified in the shooting of Michael Brown in
Ferguson, and racial profiling. Positive changes such as the Black Lives Matter movement, and
the election of our first black president were also discussed. The history was learned by reading
primary and secondary documents. One of the assignments for the class was to choose a primary
document and analyze it. I appreciated the open-ended prompt because it allowed us to interact
with history creatively.
After mulling through our textbook, I eventually came upon a post civil war era
document that struck me. The document contained two letters from a black ex-slave soldier
father named Spotswood Rice. The first letter was addressed to his daughters who were still in
enslaved, and the second was to the daughters owner. Rices goal in both letters was to obtain
ownership over his daughters. The letters are written in a threatening, angry tone. Rice really
wanted get his daughters back. He expresses this through aggressive language, and with a tone of
superiority over his daughters. He repeats several times that he had a God-given right to them. I
found it ironic that the very thing he was fighting against (slavery and ownership) he was also
seeking to attain with vengeance and entitlement. In my essay, I wanted to draw a connection

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between the owner-slave relationship and the father-daughter relationship by showing how they
both exhibited aspects of paternalism. In doing so, I would be theorizing about the origins of
paternalism. This was a dangerous claim to make given that a slave-owner relationship is very
different than a parent-child relationship. However, the language that Rice was using was so
angry and convicting that I decided to argue the connection. Little did I know, by the time I
finished this essay, the thesis would have changed, I would have new ideas, gain input from my
teacher, rewrite and re-edit, and ultimately I would adopt a new perspective on my primary
document.
With the knowledge that I could revise and discuss my essay with my teacher several
times before receiving my final grade, I felt comfortable with being adventurous. When
discussed in class through various primary documents, paternalism became an idea that disturbed
and fascinated me. The slave owners saw themselves as benevolent parents of theirs slaves:
throwing them parties, indulging them in treats, yet simultaneously oppressing their human
rights. Slave-owners saw slaves as their children. I really tried to make this connection work
between a normal parent child relationship and the paternalistic slave-owner relationship. I read
and re-read the letters to find language that might prove that the father-daughter relationship was
paternalistic, but it wasnt working that well. The language in the text mostly supported similar
traits of ownership and entitlement, but not paternalism. Without the perspective from anyone
else, my attachment to this theme only grew because the idea of paternalism was new to me, and
I wanted to write about it. However, my essay wasnt necessarily improving through all my
revising and rewriting. Still, I turned in my first draft, confident that I would get help from my
teacher on how to support my idea. On my first draft, I think I received a D. This was
disappointing, but expected.

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After receiving the initial draft back, graded, and with notes from my professor, I went to
my professors office hours to discuss the primary document. I remember that I really enjoyed
hearing her perspective and philosophies about slavery. Going to her helped me to detach from
my essay and look at the primary document more critically. As Murray says in his article,
Maker's Eye, [Writers] must detach themselves from their own pages so that they can apply
both their caring and their craft to their work (Murray 57.) If I hadnt heard another perspective
and discussed my essay critically, I dont think I would have been able to detach as easily. I
remember my teacher saying that the argument for paternalism wasnt strong enough on its own.
Detachment let me feel less emotionally connected to my first essay. I looked at the primary
document critically, and felt inspired from the words of my teacher. This led me to change my
thesis.
I adjusted my thesis to focus on the shifting ideologies among the relationships within
the idea of ownership pre civil war, during the civil war, and through emancipation. My thesis
became, Conflicting and shifting ideologies about the relationships within the idea of ownership
are important because they show how slavery was slowly abolished, and also raise questions
about the nature of ownership and whether or not this is morally right (Wright 1.) I was able to
incorporate paternalism but it was no longer the main argument I was trying to make. My body
paragraphs discussed the increasing power that Rice received each time he tried to get his
daughters back: first he tries to steal them, then he tries to buy them, and his third attempt to
take them (which he is writing about) is blunt, justified, and backed by the government. Although
I didnt realize it at the time, I chose to outline the essay in the chronological order (234) which
Foley mentions in her essay, Unteaching the five paragraph essay. This outline was optimal
because I was really trying to make a point about how things change over a period of time.

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Didion also offers a unique perspective In her essay Why I write Didion wrote, When
I talk about pictures in my mind I am talking, quite specifically, about images that shimmer
around the edges (Didion 2) Interacting with this primary document conjured pictures of what
was happening during the Civil war, and allowed me to step into this strange world that existed
in the US only a short time ago. The hegemonic relationship between blacks and whites was
accepted as morally correct. Why? This strong relationship has taken years to obliterate, and
residue from this time still exists in the present. Why is the relationship so strong? Why are
humans prone towards ownership? I explored these questions in my conclusion.
Reading, writing, imagining, theorizing about the post civil war era and discoursing with
my professor allowed me to see these shimmering pictures of another world. I still understand
why these pictures of ownership and paternalism exist, but I could see them. By the time I
finished, I felt much better about my final draft. My ideas didnt seem as radical as my first draft
on the origins of paternalism, but I felt better about turning something in that could viably be
proved through the text. Besides the experience, I also received an A on the final draft which is
always a good thing.

Works Cited
Murray, Donald M. The Makers Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts. The McGraw-Hill
Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003. 56-60. Print.

Foley, Marie. Unteaching the Five Paragraph Essay Teaching English in the Two Year College
(1989): 231-235

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Wright, Tessa. A Study of the Morality of Ownership and Its Meanings for African Americans
during the Civil War. 2015. TS. CSUS University Library, California.

Didion, Joan. "Why I Write." New York Times Book Review (1976): 1-4. Print.

Rice, Spotswood. An Ex Slave Soldier, Seeks to Protect his Children, 1864. Major Problems in
African American History ed. Thomas C Holt and Elsa Barkley Brown, 258-259.
Houghton Mifflin Compan, 2000.