The final session of our seminar has now approached and this makes me to rethink our comparative seminar. I have never enjoyed anything like that, but I must admit that this particular teaching structure as a way to learn about slavery was very effective indeed. As a future teacher I will certainly make use of this method because of highly valuable advantages, which will be outlined in the following.
It is one thing to know about slavery in the Roman World and in America, but it is another thing to be able pick out themes and use the knowledge of both slavery systems to describe the theme in question. Automatically, differences can be made out. But here, the comparison should not end. Once the differences have been identified, the next step is crucial as well: analysis. This analysis comprises questions about the reasons why the examined aspect of slavery was different in the two societies. An exemplary question makes this clear: why were there few obstacles to manumission in the Roman Empire and in the antebellum South so many? Furthermore, questions connected to it will arise: Who profited from the respective regulations and when and why were they implemented? This example makes it obvious that a lot more knowledge than only about the aspect of slavery in both societies is necessary, but knowledge about the society and its genesis as well. Therefore, I see this as the benefit of the comparative approach to slavery: not only knowledge about slavery can be gained, but also about the society itself. Power structures, ideologies and underlying passed on concepts can be detected and this only as a result of questioning the reasons for the differences. Moreover, it is a result of the student’s questioning. This further advantage justifies the comparative approach to slavery as a didactic method because the lately often acclaimed concept of historical thinking and its associated skills are needed and incorporated.
I am fully aware that this method of comparative history is not applicable and useful in a lot of other attempts to reconstruct the past. Here, chronological teaching is essential to pupils in order to give them a framework in which historical events can be located. Slavery, however, which is a very old system and observable throughout the past, can be most effectively taught by a comparison of two slave societies in order to highlight continuities and differences in the justification of slavery. Preferentially, it should be a comparison between the Roman Empire and the antebellum South because two very different concepts of slavery can be explored and explained: unlike in the Roman World, the slavery in the antebellum South was based upon race and therefore justified in the presumption of the inferiority of their black slaves.
The comparative approach to teaching slavery increases the understanding not of one, but of two slave societies. However, what is most important, it double highlights the fact that slavery was and is a cruel system exploiting people against their will for the benefit of others. History is there to learn from the past in order to ameliorate the present conditions and the future. If there is one thing the pupils should learn then it would be that slavery is not just an old phenomenon. The cruel system has been maintained until today and active resistance is needed – from everyone.