The first source I have decided to use for my annotated bibliography is found on page 93 and is source number 209. The excerpt comes from Frederick Douglass who gave a speech titled “Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country” in which he begins by giving a quote from William Meade, the Bishop of Virginia Episcopalians in 1841. In this page-long quote, Bishop Meade talks about how slaves should view their masters as God’s overseers and therefore should be obedient and complete all work given to them as if they were doing it for God himself. He even references God as “your great Master in Heaven”. He then goes on and talks about how slaves should fully accept any punishment their master gives them because, “It is your duty, and Almighty God requires that you bear it patiently.”
I found this section extremely interesting because it perfectly demonstrates how slave owners of the 19th century used any means necessary to justify slavery. Coming from a religious upbringing myself, it’s hard to imagine how a bishop, a man supposedly of faith, can try to justify the enslavement of others through religion. This book is filled with slave owners trying to justify slavery and not accept how horrific it truly was.
I found the entire text of Frederick Douglass’ speech “Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country” with the quote from William Meade online and saved it as a bookmark. It would be interesting to read more into both Meade and Douglass to get a better overall understanding of their beliefs.
In terms of the reading on how to make an annotated bibliography, I was a little worried because I have never done one before but the source did a good job of explaining it. It seems fairly easy and I definitely see the benefit in having an annotated bibliography instead of just the typical MLA formatted Works Cited. The annotated bibliography forces you to dive deeper into the source and get an overall better understanding of it instead of throwing your sources on the Works Cited page without much attention like in MLA.
Theresa Dolson
I like this insight: “The annotated bibliography forces you to dive deeper into the source and get an overall better understanding of it instead of throwing your sources on the Works Cited page without much attention like in MLA.”
Questions about finding the source online: is it the same source (book or pamphlet or whatever) that Campbell cites? How do you know? Who put the source up online? What is the site you found it on? How do you know it is accurate? (“online” is a huge universe of places, with varying degrees of reliability…)