INTRODUCTION
Sources are the fuel that powers history writing. When historians a
INTRODUCTION
Sources are the fuel that powers history writing. When historians are trying to reconstruct and understand the significance of past events their evidence comes from two broad categories of sources.
Primary sources refer to materials that were created during the time period under study. Examples of primary sources include textual materials (letters, diaries), visual sources (maps, art and photographs), material culture (clothing, furniture, ceremonial objects) and oral histories. Primary sources are often housed in archives or museums. Extracts or images of them are increasingly being made available online.
Secondary sources, by contrast, are retrospective accounts of past events. They are interpretations based on an analysis of available primary and other secondary sources. Examples of secondary sources include scholarly monographs (academic books) and articles in academic journals. The purpose of this assignment is to develop skills related to the use of primary and secondary sources in history writing.
PURPOSE
Your paper is not just summary of the document, nor is it meant to be a personal reaction essay. Your paper should demonstrate that you have read and thought about the document and are able to apply the kinds of questions that historians use when confronting an artifact from the past.
The goal of this primary source essay is to explain what the document is about, and how and why it is important to understanding twentieth-century Indigenous history in Canada. Be a detective; consider this document a clue. Read between the lines. Try to say something meaningful about the document’s significance by connecting it to larger themes.
THE PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS
In this assignment you will write an essay based on a primary source. Choose one of the following primary source documents listed below as the focus of your essay.
· Treaty and Supplementary Treaty No. 7 Between Her Majesty The Queen And The Blackfeet And Other Indian Tribes, At The Blackfoot Crossing Of Bow River And Fort Macleod (Topic: Treaty 7)
· Hayter Reed, Department of Indian Affairs Annual Report for the year end 31st December 1889, Sessional Papers, volume 23, no. 12 (1890), pp. 158-173, Parliament of Canada. (Topic: First Nations Agriculture)
· Interview, Russel Taylor (1977), Indian History Film Project, transcribed (Topic: Indigenous Veterans and World War I
The documents are available on Nexus under Primary Source Essay Instructions and Resources.
STEP-BY-STEP ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTION
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2. Read your selected primary source, carefully, noting words, names, events, themes, or anything else that is unfamiliar, and mark them for further research.
3. Research the document using high-quality reference sources (dictionaries and encyclopedias) and secondary sources (peer-reviewed academic journal articles and academic books). The best library database to find relevant, high-quality journal articles (including links to full text articles) is America: History & Life.
3.a. Your essay must cite at least three (3) secondary sources in additional to the primary source itself. All four source must be included in your bibliography.
3.b. At least one (1) of the three (3) additional sources must be a peer-reviewed book or journal article that you find through the University of Winnipeg Library (ie. Do not use only online Encyclopedia Articles)
3.c Do not use websites, including Wikipedia, as sources for this assignment.
4. Write a clearly organized essay that includes an introductory paragraph, a thesis statement about the primary source, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Review the General Guidelines for Written Assignments in the Course Syllabus.
The body of the essay should be organized around supporting your thesis statement and should:
· explain the historical context (When was the document written/created? Who wrote/created it? For what purpose?)
· summarize the document’s content (What does the document say or depict?)
· assess the document’s significance (Why is this an important document? What does it tell us about its time period?).
Your assessment of the document’s significance will form the thesis of your essay.
5. Cite your sources using Chicago Manual of Style (Notes & Bibliography) style citations.
5.a. Refer to lecture notes, slides and videos from September 12 on how to create CMOS footnotes and bibliography.
5.b. Review the Citations section in the Course Syllabus.
Include footnotes and a bibliography in your paper. The bibliography is included as a separate page at the
end of your paper.
6. Edit your essay grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
