User:FrankWSweet
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Frank W. Sweet was accepted to Ph.D. candidacy in history with a minor in molecular anthropology at the University of Florida in 2003 and has completed all but his dissertation defense. He earned an M.A. in History from American Military University in 2001. He is the author of several books and published historical essays. His latest book is Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule (ISBN 0939479230). He was a member of the editorial board of the magazine Interracial Voice, is a regular lecturer and panelist at historical and genealogical conferences, and moderates an online discussion group on the history of U.S. racialism (the “race” notion) sponsored by Backintyme Publishing. user:FrankWSweet/Sandbox
[edit] Frank W. Sweet's Rules of History-Writing
The contentious debate that often accompanies Wikipedia articles is one of the venue's strengths. Such arguments are not terribly unlike the peer-review process in professional journals, even to the extent that some of the loudest critics are ideologically motivated or uninformed about the facts of the topic at hand. Such debate is a strength because it brings out nuances and angles that the author might not have considered, thus improving the final product.
As a historian, I am sometimes asked by friends to correct factual errors in Wikipedia articles, especially those that discuss the oddities of the U.S. "race" notion. It may help critics of my writing to understand the four rules that I follow when explaining a historical event or phenomenon. My four rules are: definition, factual accuracy, place, and time.
[edit] Definition — Define the event or phenomenon that is being explained.
Imagine that you are explaining the onset of the U.S. Civil War. A good working definition of this event would be when state militias (that is what they called the National Guard back then) began killing U.S. Army soldiers.
Others might suggest that the U.S. Civil War actually began in 1776 Lexington and Concord. The political leaders of the most powerful of the 13 colonies (Virginia and South Carolina) seceded from England precisely because England had just abolished slavery via the 1772 Somerset decision by William Murray, Lord Mansfield.[1], and colonial slaveowners knew that it was only a matter of time before England would abolish slavery in their outlying agricultural regions, too. Still others might suggest the U.S. Civil War did not really start until Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined the Confederacy and Lincoln called for the non-seceding states to mobilize their militias as well.
My point is this: Author and critics alike must first agree on how they define the event being explained and then stick to this definition. If critics prefer a different definition, they should debate the semantics of the term itself and not become sidetracked into discussing facts. Facts are irrelevant unless debaters first agree on the definition of the topic at hand. For example, in my writing I use precise unambiguous definitions of: color line, Black (U.S. endogamous group), White (U.S. endogamous group), hypodescent, one-drop rule, Black-to-White passing, and slavery.
[edit] Factual Accuracy — Get your facts straight as to the place and time of the event or phenomenon.
Continuing the Civil War example, assuming that you define the event as when state militias began killing U.S. soldiers, you will look at Fort Sumter in April of 1861. Factually, this is where the event at hand took place. Neither author nor critic should claim that the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter in 1860 or 1862, nor that it was in Texas or Florida in April 1861 without presenting some very persuasive evidence indeed. The rules of evidence in scholarly debate are well known (accessible primary sources and peer-reviewed secondary sources) so I do not re-hash them here.
My point is this: Author and critics alike should debate factual accuracy by presenting evidence. But, as mentioned above, debate on factual accuracy can start only after everyone agrees as to the definition of the topic at hand. Scholarly debate is killed irretrievably when someone suddenly reneges on the agreed definition in the midst of a debate over factual accuracy.
For example, in my writing I show that the first colonists of predominantly African ancestry in British North America arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Slavery (lifelong hereditary forced labor) was first adopted in British North America in Virginia around 1662. Afro-European intermarriage was first outlawed (anywhere in the world) in 1691 Virginia. The dichotomous (Black/White) socially enforced intermarriage barrier arose (anywhere in the world) in the Chesapeake between 1691 and 1723. [British West Indian colonies adopted a trichotomous (Black/Coloured/White) system.] Hypodescent (the notion that you are Black even if you have less than half African ancestry) was first legislated (anywhere in the world) in 1705 Virginia. The one-drop rule (the notion that even if you look White, were raised as White, and consider yourself White, you are still Black—like it or not—if you are known to have any African ancestry at all, no matter how slight or how distant) was first legislated (anywhere in the world) in 1910 Tennessee.
[edit] Place — Explain why it happened where it did, and not somewhere else.
Returning to the Civil War example, one must explain why it happened in the United States. Neither author nor critic should argue that the U.S. Civil war erupted solely because the people of the seceding states owned slaves. Slavery was ubiquitous throughout the hemisphere until the 1840s, and had been common in Europe and Africa for millennia. If you explain the eruption of the Civil War as due solely to slavery, then you must explain why slavery did not cause civil wars anywhere else except perhaps Haiti. Similarly, "States' Rights" (a power struggle between central authority and local elite) caused civil war in the land freed by Bolivar, but nowhere else in the hemisphere of the period.
My point is this: in debating why an event happened where it did and nowhere else, author and critic alike should focus on other events that were unique to that same region. You cannot explain the eruption of the U.S. Civil War solely as a consequence of events that happened in a dozen other lands, but which did not cause civil wars there.
For example, in my writing I explain the passage of the 1705 Virginia law of hypodescent (unique on the planet) in terms of the 1691 Virginia law outlawing Afro-European intermarriage (also unique on the planet). Similarly, I explain the passage of the 1910 Tennessee one-drop law (unique on the planet) in terms of the circa-1900 Jim Crow wave of White-on-Black terror, oppression, lynchings, etc. (also unique on the planet).
[edit] Time — Explain why it happened when it did, and not earlier or later.
Returning to the Civil War, one must explain why it erupted in 1861 and not in 1841, say, nor in 1881. Neither author nor critic should argue that it erupted in 1861 solely because of the 1807 federal ban on slave importation. Such a long time between cause and effect demands an explanatory chain. For instance, you could conceivably argue that 1807 importation ban-->increased economic incentive to breed slaves locally-->rise in slave birth rate-->more runaways seeking their sold children, parents, and "spouses"-->demands for federal assistance in tracking down runaways-->Fugitive Slave Act-->"racially" biased corruption and injustice-->Northern disgust with the whole idea of slavery-->election of abolitionist president-->secession of slave states-->federal military force to preserve the Union-->state militias killing U.S. soldiers. I am not saying that this is the chain of events that I would use, but simply that a very long time between the proposed cause and the event being explained demands an equally long chain of explanation.
Oddly, one of the most common errors made in historical debates is anachronism—saying that an event was caused by something that happened later. I have seen a newspaper column argue that the 1861 U.S. Civil War erupted due to the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. I have seen it argued that the transcontinental railroad of 1869 was enabled by the invention of the telephone in 1876. For some reason that I cannot fathom, many sincere intelligent people cannot grasp why causes must precede effects in our space-time continuum, but there it is.
My point is this: in debating why an event happened when did and neither earlier nor later, author and critic alike should focus on other events that happened shortly before the event in question—not long before and definitely not after.
For example, in my writing I explain the public's acceptance (as opposed to the lawmakers' motivation) of the 1691 outlawing of intermarriage using documentary evidence that the prior (1660s) generation of colonists had begun to see Africans as "other." I explain the 1910 legislation of one-drop by the advent of Jim Crow (disfranchisement, lynchings, etc.) just ten years earlier. I do not explain the acceptance of the 1691 law against intermarriage by the emergence of "racism" as documented in the Rig-Veda over 3,000 years before. I do not explain the 1910 one-drop legislation as intended to preserve slavery in 1861.
-- FrankWSweet 15:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
