Text Selection
Even though we will be using some adult literature to examine the differences in historical perspectives, the student’s primary narrative text will be Forge, which has as its protagonist Curzon. He is a young African boy who is recently escaped from his owners, and who through a series of events ends up in the Massachusetts militia and eventually comes to Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778. Each chapter begins with a quote from a primary source that gives an apt prelude to the chapter’s content. These quotes will provide students with an awareness of less well-known people during this era. The quotations are from letters to family members, correspondence between military officers, political writings of the day, and petitions of slaves desiring freedom from their masters. As the plot moves along, told in Curzon’s voice, the reader gets the sense that this is more than just a novel about the winter at Valley Forge; it is also a treatise on the struggle of different groups of people to become free from their chains.
Curzon initially begins his escape with Isabelle, another slave who wants to find her sister who has been sold away to another family in the South. Their competing ideas about where to run and what should take precedence in their decisions compel Isabelle to leave Curzon and take all their collective money. He makes the decision to join the Continentals in an effort to further his advance towards Albany and to escape the danger of return to slavery. He endures many skirmishes as a soldier and the regiment eventually makes its way to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to join other troops in the winter camp. This is where the story takes a dramatic turn. As the story progresses, Curzon is spotted by his former owner, Bellingham, who is now in a position of authority with the quartermaster, and Mister Bellingham decides that Curzon should resume his enslaved position, “I own you.”(8) And as fate would have it, Isabelle is also reunited with Curzon as she comes to the Moore House in service to Lady Greene, wife to General Nathaniel Greene.
This text will provide students with a protagonist similar in age struggling to use the known information along with the speculations about his future. If they stay and take their chances, is there a possibility that they will indeed be granted their freedom as promised in the Declaration of Independence?
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.(9)
In addition to reading our fictionalized story and the historians’ perspectives, students will investigate and analyze the image texts from Schanzer’s book about King George III and General George Washington, as well as the broadsides and paintings from this period. As Schanzer says in her biographical information, “…during the time I spent researching this book, I realized that the truth is much more complicated.” (10) This book centers on the lives and ideals espoused by Washington and King George. The author/illustrator provides details in paintings that include both image and text. The merging of visual and word gives a heightened sense of contrast between these men. Even though they both believed in their own cause, there were also differences in their methods and eventually results that neither could have predicted. They both believed they were right and that frames the story for students as they discriminate between the effects of the war on both Great Britain and the new independent America.
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