READING AND ANALYZING HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

A useful way to analyze primary documents is to approach them at four levels: the text, the context, the subtext, and interpretation (how you can use it to create a new text or narrative, such as a paper).

The Text

If the document is a book, pamphlet, letter, or other statement of an author's views or story, figure out what the author intended to say: what his or her argument or message is. If you're reading the sort of document that describes events or actions (for example, court records or laws), figure out what was happening (what the accused were being charged with, what their punishment was, what they did; what the laws decreed, etc).

The Context

Use other course readings by historians (secondary works) to put the document in the context of the time and place where it was produced, and to begin to consider its representativity. For example, we will be reading the will of a freed slave in Brazil; you could use the macro context from Mattoso to determine that particular slave’s place in the social structure (ethnicity, occupation, gender, age, religion, urban or rural, etc.). In the will, he frees some of his own slaves; use the data provided by Mattosso to assess how typical were his manumissions of general practice (e.g. do the slaves have to pay a price, and if so was it above or below the average price of a slave?). We will also read a document about a slave rebellion; use Mattoso for information on the average size of sugar plantations in Brazil, and the labor practices generally in use, and compare these to the situation of this particular revolt.

The Subtext

Go beyond what an author means to say or what laws were passed: look for the unstated or implicit values and beliefs that inform what an author says-and what he or she fails to say. Often this means taking your knowledge of the context, to ask how a person’s social position affects their perspective on and judgment of the events happening. For example, in narrative-type of document (e.g. Cortes’s report to the king), what are the author's specific grievances and/or what specific goals is he or she trying to accomplish? What social, political, and/or religious beliefs lie behind these specific grievances and goals? If the document is less narrative (e.g. will or court case), what was each person or group trying to accomplish in carrying out the actions described, and what values, religious beliefs, beliefs about right and wrong, etc., lay behind these actions? Do your best to understand all the historical actors you study--even those you find biased or otherwise objectionable. How and why did a particular document survive, and what other perspectives did not?

Interpretation

Finally, there is a reason you are reading this document so carefully: to answer questions about how people thought in a particular historical period, or why events happened in the way they did. Based upon your analysis of the text, context and subtext, write up an explanation or “argument” about an important issue. For example, use the freed slave’s will, along with other information from Mattoso, to evaluate whether or not the practice of manumission undermined the slave system in Brazil.

For more tips, see http://www.gened.arizona.edu/huston/how_to_read_a_primary_document.htm

http://writing.umn.edu/sws/disciplines/history/primary_source.htm

Site maintained by Sarah Chambers and Todd Rowlatt.

Last updated September 20, 2005
© University of Minnesota 2003
The University of Minnesota is an Equal Opportunity Employer.