Colonial Williamsburg

VOLUME 7, ISSUE 6

Top Stories

The Newsworthy Somerset Case

The Somerset case was a 1772 landmark legal decision by the English Court of King's Bench which determined that a slave entering Britain with his or her owner could not be sent out of Britain to be sold. It was considered a turning point in the British antislavery movement.

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Primary Source of the Month: Wrought Iron Leg Shackles

For runaway slaves, freedom was usually short-lived. Most were captured and returned to their owners or, if their owners could not be identified, sold to new masters. To ensure that they could not escape again, captured runaways were held in jails until they could be returned to their owners—in shackles.

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Teaching Strategy: The Somerset Case

The legal relationship between Great Britain and her colonies was complicated. Though colonies were granted legislative, judicial, and executive power, the king and Parliament viewed the colonies as subjects. All colony charters contained a "repugnancy" clause to prevent the passage of legislation that did not agree with English common law. In this high school lesson, students learn about the relationship between Great Britain and her colonies by examining a legal dispute over the institution of slavery.

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Colonial Williamsburg Teaching Resources for Your Classroom

Colonial Williamsburg offers a variety of quality instructional materials dealing with 18th-century life, including:

• Hands-On History: Slave's Bag (object kit)
• Slavery: A Colonial Odyssey (lesson unit)
• Enslaved (video, teacher guide, and Web activities )
• From Ear to Ear (CD)
• Stories Under African Skies (CD)

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Teaching News

Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial
Did you know that February 12, 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth? If you’re looking for information, primary sources, and instructional materials on our 16th president, try the following sites:

• Abraham Lincoln Learning Page
  (Library of Congress)
• Teaching with Lincoln
  (Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium)
• One Life: The Mask of Lincoln
  (National Portrait Gallery)
• Abraham Lincoln (EDSitement, NEH)
• Lincoln 200 Years (C-SPAN)
• Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

Quotation of the Month

". . . the state of slavery . . . [is] so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist."

-Edmund Burke, speech in the
House of Commons, May 9, 1788

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