Think As Historian: THINK AS A HISTORIAN: EXPLAIN THE PURPOSES Of EvIDENCE
Evidence in an argument can serve a variety of purposes. Its most common purpose is to support the claim at the heart of an argument. Specific facts or examples that demonstrate the truth of a more general assertion in the thesis fulfill this purpose. Evidence can also modify a claim by providing facts, examples, or reasoning that show that parts of the claim are true but that other parts are not. Evidence can also refute, or disprove, a claim. Evidence that serves this purpose provides facts, examples, or reasoning that support an alternative or opposing claim.
Consider the claim (in bold type below) in this argument: When King Ferdinand expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, he provided for a three-month period for them to ready themselves for departure. The King promised that the state would “take and receive them under our Security, protection, and royal safeguard” and “that during the said time, no one shall harm them, nor injure them, no wrong shall be done to them against justice.” Although the King’s promises sound respectful of the Jews’ rights to safety, the very act of expulsion marked them as inferior and exposed them to relentless harms.
The statements below are from an account written by an Italian Jew in 1495 (Internet Jewish History Source Book). For each statement, deter- mine whether it could best be used to support, modify, or refute the claim above.
1. “ When the edict of expulsion became known. . . vessels came from Genoa to the Spanish harbors to carry away the Jews. The crews of these vessels. . . acted maliciously and meanly toward the Jews, robbed them, and delivered some of them to the famous pirate of that time who was called the Corsair of Genoa. To those who escaped and arrived at Genoa the people of the city showed themselves merciless, and oppressed and robbed them, and the cruelty of their wicked hearts went so far that they took the infants from the mothers. . . . .”
2. “ One hundred and twenty thousand [Jews] went to Portugal, according to a compact which a prominent man. . . had made with the King of Portugal [who] allowed them to stay in his country six months. . . . [A]fter the six months had elapsed he made slaves of all [who] remained in his country, and banished seven hundred children to a remote island to settle it, and all of them died.”“
3. “ Many ships with Jews, especially from Sicily, went to the city of Naples on the coast. The King of this country was friendly to the Jews, received them all, and was merciful towards them, and he helped them with money. The Jews that were at Naples supplied them with food . . . and sent around to the other parts of Italy to collect money to sustain them. . . . [But] all this was not enough. Some of them died by famine, others sold their children to Christians to sustain their life. Finally, a plague broke out among them, spread to Naples, and very many of them died, so that the living wearied of burying the dead.”