Robinson offered conditional freedom to his slaves Jack and Amelia in Prince Edward Island in 1808. He told them that if they behaved well for one year, as judged by Robinson, and were not needed by Robinson or his wife, they would be given their liberty, but not their children. However, Robinson maintained control and said their liberty was contingent on good behavior and being needed by him or his wife. The document provides insights into the complex negotiations that took place between slaveholders and slaves, as Jack and Amelia tried to gain more agency and freedom despite the control exerted by their owner.

1. Please help me come up with a question about the reading below. ...
Please help me come up with a question about the reading below.
Come up with 1 question about the reading below to lead a discussion.
Answer the question: Should someone doubt the author's argument? Why?
Answer the question: Elaborate on the significance of a primary source. Is it especially
useful for understanding the history of the Americas? Why?
Answer the question: What is the theme?
Refer directly to at least one passage from, or part of, the source (use a quote).
Gradual Emancipation of Jack and Amelia in Prince Edward Island, 1808
In this document, Prince Edward Island slave owner Colonel Joseph Robinson offers
conditional freedom to his two slaves. These slaves, Jack and Amelia, had a few children
who Robinson also owned. Readers should carefully read this excerpt from the
memorandum book. Although Robinson owned Jack and Amelia, it is clear that his slaves
also had agency in gaining their freedom. Slavery was complicated, and it was far too simple
to assume that slaves had no cards they could play. For example, there are various types of
negotiation coexisting in Robinson's note. The first sentence of his entry is profoundly
revealing. Robinson wrote that he was under the necessity of telling his slaves about their
impending move to Prince Town. Let us ask why he felt compelled to tell them anything.
They were his slaves, after all. Yet the first sentence demonstrates that Robinson felt like he
could not Just tell.his slaves what to do. Robinson did not simply make Amelia and Jack
leave their home, but rather he explained to them—that is, he negotiated with the two
slaves—why they should go to Prince Town. Indeed, Robinson had to sweeten the deal or
face two discontented or resistant slaves. He thus offered freedom to the couple while
simultaneously denying it to their children, but this gave the slaves a chance to seize their
own freedom. As the historian Ira Berlin argues, slaves could negotiate their freedom, but it
was a bdcky business. Robinson had most of the advantages, including an understanding of
the law and more material resources than his slaves. His notation left little doubt as to his
goal of controlling his slaves' behaviour by placing demeaning demands on them. Indeed,
like many slaveholders who offered conditional manumission throughout North America,
Robinson could not "resist squeezing [his] slaves one last time." But Jack and Amelia were
far from helpless. They could caU. upon a reservoir of knowledge about their owners and
"the support of family and community." The tenor of Robinson's note reveals a man trying
to convince himself that he still controlled his slaves by attempting to put various types of

2. restrictions on Jack and Amelia's potential liberty. Yet his slaves did, in some ways, control
their path to freedom if "they behaved themselves. They knew how to please Robinson and
his wife after years of service to them. The enslaved couple could use this knowledge to
obtain freedom. However, the continued
enslavement of their children presented financial challenges that requked the couple to
slowly build up enough money to purchase their children's liberty. Jack and Amelias
opportunity for freedom is an example of the negotiations that took place between
slaveholders and slaves throughout the Atlantic world including the Maritime colonies.
These two slaves did not have the best cards to play, but they did have some cards and
could win a hand against their owners, which might result in freedom or the amelioration of
certain conditions.
19th July 1800—I was under the necessity of telling my servants, Jack and Amelia to get
them to go to Prince Town—that at the end of one year, if they behaved themselves well (of
which I was to be the judge) and that neither Mrs. -- or myself wanted either of them, I
would give them their liberty; that is to say, only for themselves two, not liberty for any
children they now have or may hereafter have. But I also told them that if they or either of
them misbehaved, they forfeit all expectations thereto. I also told them as long as either of
us wanted them, they were not to look for or expect their liberty, but to remain slaves as
long as we or either of us, thought proper.
Joseph Aplin's Racial Justification for Slavery, 1808
Joseph Aplin served as an attorney for slaveholders m the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. He would eventually serve as the attorney general of Prince Edward
Island. In this document, he bluntly describes black people as naturally fit for slavery. Why
are they black and we white, there can be nothing more diametrically opposite to each other
than those two colours, which serves to evince their inferiority to us. [I]t may be said that
their colour is owing to the Climate in which they reside. If it was why are not those who
live under the same parallels of Latitude, of the like cast? No doubt can remain that they
were designed to be subservient to others: therefore [black people] may be very justly
termed slaves by Nature.