Authors each use their own unique narration and documentation when writing a book about a piece of history, such as Celia a Slave or Shays’ Rebellion. Melton McLaurin, the author of Celia a Slave, uses much more guesswork and “he-said she-said” documentation rather than actual sound facts. However, David Szatmary, author of Shays’ Rebellion, uses much more first hand, factual information. Melton’s Celia a Slave is not at times very factual and leaves room for questioning. Yet Szatmary writes a piece of literature that uses actual facts and times to convince the reader that his book is completely legitimate.

Celia a Slave probably very closely portrays what actually may have happened to Celia. He used the information he did gather and put it all together and wrote a very close account of her story. However, he uses many assumptions and questionable documentation in this book. In chapter two he states “Precisely what occurred

Both Melton and Szatmary have used the facts they were able to obtain to piece together two important events in history. Melton, however, relies more on personal opinion and educated guesses, where as Szatmary makes use of accurate, credible, documented information, producing a more legitimate representation of a moment in time. Both books are useful in providing information to the reader about these important events, yet in the end, Szatmary seems to have written a much better documented piece.

Shays’ Rebellion, on the other hand, is much better documented and clearly more accurate. He takes the guesswork out and makes use of approximate dates and first-hand accounts of what exactly was said and done. Szatmary states “On May 26, 1785 Matthew Patten “had the same team of my brother’s today that we had yesterday and John McLaughlin came…” Szatmary gives and exact date and also provides the reader with full names. He then goes on to give more dates and more details as he st

Some topics in this essay:
Celia Slave, Shays’ Rebellion, Melton Szatmary, John McLaughlin, James Parker, Documentation Authors, celia slave, Matthew Patten, shays’ rebellion, David Szatmary, Melton McLaurin, rebellion hand, piece history, szatmary able, entered cabin, shays’ rebellion hand,