“I was curious as to how you use literary sources for your historical research.”

-Brad

Brad, I can give you a specific example of Plantation America research.

I use secondary sources to find primary sources and to calibrate social distortions and historical delusions overtime, which cannot be done until the primary source material has been accessed.

For instance, I have recently read White over Black, a massive tome by Winthrop D. Jordon. His first 44 pages is a chronological survey of sited primary sources concerning English perceptions of black Africans in early modern times. He then defaults to the delusion post-Civil War myopia of American Academia and the book loses most potential value from there on, other than the citations of actual sources rather than regurgitation of the operant academic delusion. Jordon’s value now is assigned to source citations and to stand as an example of chronological myopia.

The Wonders of the Invisible World and other documents by Cotton Mather, Increase Mather, William Stroughton and Deodat Lawson, a poorly curated, but nicely reproduced source collection from the year 1692, was, in 193 pages, far more valuable than Winthrop D. Jordon’s 651 volume master work.

I have annotated this volume extensively, using the inside front cover as an index which tells me what section I will utilize for what project I am currently reading for. The key page says:

-Pages 66-74 ‘Such Reformations’ The Mind’s Eye

-75-77 ‘The Affrighted Joseph’ The Mind’s Eye

-99-105 ‘My Thoughts are My Own’ The Mind’s Eye

-159-60 ‘Kidnapt’ The Greatest Lie Ever Told

-113-14 ‘Under a Conduct of the Devil’ for Plaeface

-117-21 ‘Prest Unto Death’ Paleface

-85 ‘The Black Man’ The 13th Tribe

-78 ‘Discontents and Menaces’ The 13 Tribe

-52-55 ‘A New Jerusalem’ The 13th Tribe

-57-74 ‘Sooty Devils’ The 13th Tribe

-Pages 1-51 use to extract quotes for 13th Tribe chapter headings and titles, such as this one from the last section: ‘This Inferior World.’

-92-97 ‘Poppets’ The 13th Tribe

-106-9 ‘Fear’d but not Prov’d’ The 13 Tribe

-110-13 ‘The Rampant Hag’ The 13th Tribe

-114-17 ‘Plastic Spirit of the World’ The 13th Tribe

-122-57 ‘Of His Devices’ The 13th Tribe

-138-46 ‘Three Maids’ The 13 Tribe

-147-9 ‘Spectral Appearances’ The 13th Tribe

-150-93 ‘A Nocent and Wicked Person’ The 13th Tribe

Brad, the system above was developed to achieve historical clarity, despite numerous actual and academic barriers, a clarity best preserved through the actual surviving words of the time.

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