Analyzing Primary Source Documents

Watch the video featuring author and historian Elizabeth Pollard.

In this video, Elizabeth Pollard describes the different sources historians encounter in their study of the past. Identify what insights into the past these sources provide by matching each of the sources to the types of information they convey.

Diaries or journals
- an individual's daily life in the past

Law codes
- a sense of the power structures and concepts of ideal behavior in the past

Letters
- relationship structures between individuals in the past

Poems
- a view into the aesthetic or artistic sensibilities of the past

Religious texts
- a sense of morality and a past civilization's belief in its place in the cosmos

Watch the video featuring Elizabeth Pollard analyzing an excerpt from Rabban Bar Sâwmâ, Pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

What important questions do historians keep in mind when analyzing documents?

CORRECT :
- What is the source's historical context?

- What is the comparative or transregional value of the source?

- What is the point of view of the author?

- Who is the author?

- Who was the intended audience for the document?


INCORRECT :
- How damaged is the document?

Which of the following best describes the author of this primary source document?


Tenskwatawa, a Shawnee Indian leader, lived in early nineteenth-century North America. Read the excerpt below from a speech Tenskwatawa gave to his people, who lived in the Great Lakes and the Ohio River Valley, in an effort to get them to change their behavior, especially as it related to interactions with intruding people of European descent.

Our Creator put us on this wide, rich land, and told us we were free to go where the game was, where the soil was good for planting. That was our state of true happiness. We did not have to beg for anything. Our Creator had taught us how to find and make everything we needed, from trees and plants and animals and stone. We lived in bark, and we wore only the skins of animals.

For many years we traded furs to the English or the French, for wool blankets and guns and iron things, for steel awls and needles and axes, for mirrors, for pretty things made of beads and silver. And for liquor. This was foolish, but we did not know it. We shut our ears to the Great Good Spirit. We did not want to hear that we were being foolish.

But now those things of the white men have corrupted us, and made us weak and needful. Our men forgot how to hunt without noisy guns. Our women don't want to make fire without steel, or cook without iron, or sew without metal awls and needles, or fish without steel hooks. Some look in those mirrors all the time, and no longer teach their daughters to make leather or render bear oil. We learned to need the white men's goods, and so now a People who never had to beg for anything must beg for everything!

And that is why Our Creator purified me and sent me down to you full of the shining power, to make you what you were before!

An Amerindian who presented a historical narrative for a specific political purpose

What statement best describes this primary source?


Tenskwatawa, a Shawnee Indian leader, lived in early nineteenth-century North America. Read the excerpt below from a speech Tenskwatawa gave to his people, who lived in the Great Lakes and the Ohio River Valley, in an effort to get them to change their behavior, especially as it related to interactions with intruding people of European descent.

Our Creator put us on this wide, rich land, and told us we were free to go where the game was, where the soil was good for planting. That was our state of true happiness. We did not have to beg for anything. Our Creator had taught us how to find and make everything we needed, from trees and plants and animals and stone. We lived in bark, and we wore only the skins of animals.

For many years we traded furs to the English or the French, for wool blankets and guns and iron things, for steel awls and needles and axes, for mirrors, for pretty things made of beads and silver. And for liquor. This was foolish, but we did not know it. We shut our ears to the Great Good Spirit. We did not want to hear that we were being foolish.

But now those things of the white men have corrupted us, and made us weak and needful. Our men forgot how to hunt without noisy guns. Our women don't want to make fire without steel, or cook without iron, or sew without metal awls and needles, or fish without steel hooks. Some look in those mirrors all the time, and no longer teach their daughters to make leather or render bear oil. We learned to need the white men's goods, and so now a People who never had to beg for anything must beg for everything!

And that is why Our Creator purified me and sent me down to you full of the shining power, to make you what you were before!

This is a transcription of a speech that Tenskwatawa gave to members of his society

What insight into the past does this primary source document provide? Identify the statements below that describe what this document reveals about encounters between the Shawnee and European traders and settlers.

CORRECT :
- European trade negatively impacted Amerindian autonomy.

- Tenskwatawa was wary of the effects that Europeans had on those in his society

- The Shawnee at this time were very familiar with Europeans and their trading goods


INCORRECT :
- Tenskwatawa though men and women were doing the same tasks as a result of European products

- The Shawnee rejected European trade goods

- The Shawnee had trouble gaining access to sufficient land before the European settlers arrived

What statement below best describes the author of this primary source document?


In 1488, at the age of nineteen, Laura Cereta penned a response to a fictional Italian man, whom she deemed ignorant of the relevant facts about women who lived in his country. Read the excerpt below from the primary source document she authored.

Your complaints are hurting my ears, for you say publicly and quite openly that you are not only surprised but pained that I am said to show this extraordinary intellect of the sort one would have thought nature would give to the most learned of men—as if you had reached the conclusion, on the facts of the case, that a similar girl had seldom been seen among peoples of the world. You are wrong on both counts, Semproni, and now that you've abandoned the truth, you are going to spread information abroad that is clearly false. ...

We have read that the breast of Ethiopian Sabba, imbued with divinity, solved the prophetic riddles of the Egyptian king Solomon. ... The enduring fame of Inachan Isis will flourish, for she alone of the Argive goddesses revealed to the Egyptians her own alphabet for reading. But Zenobia, an Egyptian woman of noble erudition, became so learned not only in Egyptian but also in Latin and Greek literature that she wrote the histories of barbarian and foreign peoples. ... All history is full of such examples. ... My point is that your mouth has grown foul because you keep it sealed so that no arguments can come out of it that might enable you to admit that nature imparts one freedom to all human beings equally—to learn.

For some women worry about the styling of their hair, the elegance of their clothes, and the pearls and other jewelry they wear on their fingers. Others love to say cute little things, to hide their feeling behind a mask of tranquility, to indulge in dancing, and lead pet dogs around on a leash. But those women for whom the quest for the good represents a higher value restrain their young spirits and ponder better plains. They harden their bodies with sobriety and toil, they control their tongues, they carefully monitor what they hear, they ready their minds for all-night vigils. ...

A woman who was angry about society's general views of women

Who was the primary audience for this document?


In 1488, at the age of nineteen, Laura Cereta penned a response to a fictional Italian man, whom she deemed ignorant of the relevant facts about women who lived in his country. Read the excerpt below from the primary source document she authored.

Your complaints are hurting my ears, for you say publicly and quite openly that you are not only surprised but pained that I am said to show this extraordinary intellect of the sort one would have thought nature would give to the most learned of men—as if you had reached the conclusion, on the facts of the case, that a similar girl had seldom been seen among peoples of the world. You are wrong on both counts, Semproni, and now that you've abandoned the truth, you are going to spread information abroad that is clearly false. ...

We have read that the breast of Ethiopian Sabba, imbued with divinity, solved the prophetic riddles of the Egyptian king Solomon. ... The enduring fame of Inachan Isis will flourish, for she alone of the Argive goddesses revealed to the Egyptians her own alphabet for reading. But Zenobia, an Egyptian woman of noble erudition, became so learned not only in Egyptian but also in Latin and Greek literature that she wrote the histories of barbarian and foreign peoples. ... All history is full of such examples. ... My point is that your mouth has grown foul because you keep it sealed so that no arguments can come out of it that might enable you to admit that nature imparts one freedom to all human beings equally—to learn.

For some women worry about the styling of their hair, the elegance of their clothes, and the pearls and other jewelry they wear on their fingers. Others love to say cute little things, to hide their feeling behind a mask of tranquility, to indulge in dancing, and lead pet dogs around on a leash. But those women for whom the quest for the good represents a higher value restrain their young spirits and ponder better plains. They harden their bodies with sobriety and toil, they control their tongues, they carefully monitor what they hear, they ready their minds for all-night vigils. ...

Literate men, who generally argued that women were inferior to men, and inferior learners

What insights into the past does this primary source document provide? Identify the statements below that describe what these journal entries reveal about the experiences of women in fifteenth-century Europe.

CORRECT:
- Girls were not taught the same things as boys.

- Some women studied classical history while others pretended not to be interested.

- Women were not encouraged to educate themselves.


INCORRECT:
- Men viewed women as equal partners in life.

- Women openly discussed affairs of state with men.

- Women regularly wrote books.

Read the excerpt from the document below, which probably appeared sometime around 213 BCE in Qin China.

Who was the most likely author of this primary source document?


In earlier times the empire disintegrated and fell into disorder, and no one was capable of unifying it. Thereupon the various feudal lords rose to power. In their discourses they all praised the past in order to disparage the present and embellished empty words to confuse the truth. Everyone cherished his own favorite school of learning and criticized what had been instituted by the authorities. But at present Your Majesty possesses a unified empire, has regulated the distinctions of black and white, and has firmly established for yourself a position of sole supremacy. And yet these independent schools, joining with each other, criticize the codes of laws and instructions. Hearing of the promulgation of a decree, they criticize it, each from the standpoint of his own school. ...

They seek a reputation by discrediting their sovereign; they appear superior by expressing contrary views, and they lead the lowly multitude in the spreading of slander. If such license is not prohibited, the sovereign power will decline above and partisan factions will form below. It would be well to prohibit this. Your servant suggests that all books in the imperial archives, save the memoirs of Qin, be burned. All persons in the empire, except members of the Academy of Learned Scholars, in possession of the Classic of Odes, the Classic of Documents, and discourses of the hundred philosophers should take them to the local governors and have them indiscriminately burned. Those who dare to talk to each other about the Odes and Documents should be executed and their bodies exposed in the marketplace. Anyone referring to the past to criticize the present should, together with all members of his family, be put to death. Officials who fail to report cases that have come under their attention are equally guilty. After thirty days from the time of issuing the decree, those who have not destroyed their books are to be branded and sent to build the Great Wall.

A government official

What type of a primary source document is this and what does it reveal about the intended audience for this piece?


In earlier times the empire disintegrated and fell into disorder, and no one was capable of unifying it. Thereupon the various feudal lords rose to power. In their discourses they all praised the past in order to disparage the present and embellished empty words to confuse the truth. Everyone cherished his own favorite school of learning and criticized what had been instituted by the authorities. But at present Your Majesty possesses a unified empire, has regulated the distinctions of black and white, and has firmly established for yourself a position of sole supremacy. And yet these independent schools, joining with each other, criticize the codes of laws and instructions. Hearing of the promulgation of a decree, they criticize it, each from the standpoint of his own school. ...

They seek a reputation by discrediting their sovereign; they appear superior by expressing contrary views, and they lead the lowly multitude in the spreading of slander. If such license is not prohibited, the sovereign power will decline above and partisan factions will form below. It would be well to prohibit this. Your servant suggests that all books in the imperial archives, save the memoirs of Qin, be burned. All persons in the empire, except members of the Academy of Learned Scholars, in possession of the Classic of Odes, the Classic of Documents, and discourses of the hundred philosophers should take them to the local governors and have them indiscriminately burned. Those who dare to talk to each other about the Odes and Documents should be executed and their bodies exposed in the marketplace. Anyone referring to the past to criticize the present should, together with all members of his family, be put to death. Officials who fail to report cases that have come under their attention are equally guilty. After thirty days from the time of issuing the decree, those who have not destroyed their books are to be branded and sent to build the Great Wall.

CORRECT :
- This is intended as a persuasive argument, meant to get the emperor to issue a specific decree.


INCORRECT :
- This is a journal entry from a teacher that was meant to be kept private.

- This is a law, meant to be announced to the public.

- This is a letter from the emperor, designed to announce a new policy.

Historians use primary source documents as evidence to support their informed opinions while writing about the past. What passages from this primary source could a historian use to support the claim that strict punishment was the only way to deter bad outcomes? Select the passages from the primary source that best support this claim.

" Those who dare to talk to each other about the Odes and Documents should be executed and their bodies exposed in the marketplace. Anyone referring to the past to criticize the present should, together with all members of his family, be put to death. Officials who fail to report cases that have come under their attention are equally guilty. "

What arguments about the past could a historian make based on the evidence contained in this document?

CORRECT :
- Qin China did not want to risk challenges to its authority based on previously held ideas about the state


INCORRECT :
- Qin China did not believe in capital punishment

- Qin China encouraged new ideas to be developed

- Qin China was a state that was based on religious ideology