Unit 2 Must Knows PDF

EMPOWERING HISTORIES Unit 2: Freedom, Slavery, and Resistance 1503 to 1865 Topic 2.1 African Explorers in America 🔑 Key Question: What roles did ladinos play as the first Africans to arrive in the territory that became the United States? What...

EMPOWERING HISTORIES Unit 2: Freedom, Slavery, and Resistance 1503 to 1865 Topic 2.1 African Explorers in America 🔑 Key Question: What roles did ladinos play as the first Africans to arrive in the territory that became the United States? What was their significance to Spanish colonization of the Americas? ➠ Context: The Columbian Exchange In 1492, just as Portugal was colonizing São Tomé and starting trade relations with Kongo, the Spanish monarchs paid Christopher Columbus to try and find a Western route to the spice trade of India. Columbus accidentally bumped into the Americas. This event started the Columbian Exchange:the global history altering exchange of goods, plants, animals, people, from Afro-Eurasia to the Americas and vice versa. It is estimated that 90% of the indigenous population of the Americas died from infectious diseases that came from Afro Eurasia. This accident of biology allowed the Spanish the ability to colonize regions of the Americas and extract immense wealth. The Portuguese, French, British, and Dutch, seeking wealth of their own, would soon follow the Spanish to the Americas. ➠ Context: European and West African interactions before colonization of the Americas In the late 1400s, trade between West African kingdoms and Portugal was growing steadily, bypassing the trans-Saharan trade routes. African kingdoms increased their wealth and power through slave trading. Not only was European presence growing in West Africa, but the population of sub-Saharan Africans Portuguese and Spanish port cities was also growing. In Seville and Lisbon, both free and enslaved Africans worked in a variety of roles including domestic labor, boatmen, guards, entertainers, vendors, and knights. - African elites, including ambassadors and the children of rulers, traveled to Mediterranean port cities for diplomatic, educational, and religious reasons. ➠ The wide variety of roles that West Africans played in European cities meant that the first Africans in the Americas also played a wide variety of roles. Despite common misconceptions, chattel Slavery was not the original experience for people from Africa in the Americas. The first Africans in the Americas came with the Spanish and enjoyed some social mobility. ➠ Ladinos: the free and enslaved Africans familiar with Iberian (Spanish/ Portuguese) culture & language who journeyed with Europeans in their earliest explorations of the Americas; among them were the first Africans in territory that became the United States. ➠ Ladinos were part of a generation known as Atlantic creoles. Atlantic creoles were people of African descent in “New World” Latin America. They played the important role of cultural mediators, liaisons, diplomats, missionaries, and interpreters. They helped the new cross-Atlantic trade system work. This was before the time of modern racial concepts evolved and before the predominance of chattel slavery. Their familiarity with multiple languages, cultural norms, and commercial practices granted them a measure of social mobility. They’re experiences show us that the status of people of African descent in the Americas was not fixed at the beginning of the story.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ Ladinos were essential to the efforts of European powers laying claim to Indigenous lands. Black participation in America’s colonization resulted from Spain’s early role in the slave trade and the presence of enslaved and free Africans in the parties of Spanish explorers who laid claim to “La Florida”— Spain’s name for an area that included Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. 🔑 Key Question #2: What were some of the diverse roles that Africans played during colonization of the Americas in the 16th century? ➠ In the 15th and 16th centuries, Africans in the Americas played three major roles: - As conquistadores, participating in the work of conquest, often in hopes of gaining their freedom - As enslaved laborers, working largely in mining and agriculture to produce profit for Europeans - As free skilled workers and artisans ➠ Juan Garrido, a conquistador born in the Kingdom of Kongo, moved to Lisbon, Portugal. A free man, he became the first known African to arrive in North America when he explored present-day Florida during a Spanish expedition in 1513. Garrido maintained his freedom by serving in the Spanish military forces, participating in efforts to conquer Indigenous populations. ➠ Estevanico (also called Esteban), an enslaved African healer from Morocco, was forced to work in 1528 as an explorer and translator in Texas and in territory that became the southwestern United States. He was eventually killed by Indigenous groups that were resisting Spanish colonialism. 2.1 Vocabulary People Ladinos “La Florida” Juan Garrido Atlantic creoles conquistadores Estevanico social mobility free skilled workers & artisans Other Required Sources to Recall - Letter: Juan Garrido’s petition, 1538 Topic 2.2 Departure Zones in Africa and the Slave Trade to the U.S. 🔑 Key Question: Describe how chattel slavery was a new and different from of slavery. How did chattel slavery in the Atlantic system compare to slavery in past human societies? ➠ Slavery is as old as human history, but across the world and throughout history, slavery was typically domestic slavery. In this system, enslaved people would be absorbed into the new culture that held them captive and typically gained freedom after a set time. Children of the enslaved were not enslaved, they were brought up as members (perhaps a lower class) of the new society. Though this is a harsh and immoral practice, it is not as dehumanizing as the system created during the 16th century Atlantic trade system. ➠ The Portuguese began a new practice of human trafficking which began through their contact of West African people while attempting to sail around Africa in the 1450s. Enslaved West Africans were forced to work on sugar plantations on small Atlantic islands off the coast of Africa (ie the Canaries and Sao Tome). In these places, a new system of slavery, one that would not be fully defined until the 1600s, began to emerge. Chattel Slavery is the system in which enslaved  EMPOWERING HISTORIES people and their descendants are classified as property and not as humans and are considered enslaved for life. This type of generational slavery went against all legal and moral codes throughout human history. European enslavers would not have been able to carry out this slavery on the mainland because it was obviously immoral and therefore, it was illegal. 🔑 Key Question #2: How large was the scale of the transatlantic slave trade? ➠ Due to the slave trade, before the 19th century, more people arrived in the Americas from Africa than from any other region. ➠ The transatlantic slave trade lasted over 350 years (from the early 1500s to the mid 1800s), and more than 12.5 million enslaved Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas. Of those who survived the journey, only about 5% (approximately 388,000) came directly from Africa to what became the United States. 🔑 Key Question #3: What was the geographic scope of the transatlantic slave trade? ➠ Forty-eight percent of all Africans who were brought to the United States directly from Africa landed in Charleston, S.C., the center of U.S. slave trading. ➠ Portugal, Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands were the top five enslaving nations involved in the transatlantic slave trade. 🔑 Key Question #4: What were the primary trading zones in Africa from which Africans were forcibly taken? ➠ Enslaved Africans transported directly to mainland North America primarily came from locations that correspond to nine contemporary African regions: Senegambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Angola, and Mozambique. ➠ Captives from Senegambia and Angola comprised nearly half of those taken to mainland North America (about a quarter from each region). 🔑 Key Question #4: How did the distribution of distinct African ethnic groups during the era of slavery shaped the development of African American communities in the U.S. ➠ Enslaved Africans’ cultural contributions in the U.S. varied based on their many different places of  EMPOWERING HISTORIES origin. The interactions of various African ethnic groups produced multiple combinations of African-based cultural practices, languages, and belief systems within African American communities. ➠ The ancestors of early generations of African Americans in mainland North America derived from numerous West and Central African ethnic groups, such as the Wolof (Senegambia), Akan (Ghana), Igbo, and Yoruba (Nigeria). Nearly half of those who arrived in the U.S. came from Muslim or Christian regions of Africa. ➠ The distribution patterns of numerous African ethnic groups throughout the American South created diverse Black communities with distinctive combinations of African-based cultural practices, languages, and beliefs. 2.2 Vocabulary chattel slavery 5% to US directly from Africa Senegambia and Angola transatlantic slave trade: 350 Charleston, SC multiple combinations of years, 12.5 million people top five enslaving nations African-based cultural practices Topic 2.3 Capture and the Impact of the Slave Trade on West African Societies 🔑 Key Question: Describe the conditions of the three-part journey enslaved Africans endured during the slave trade. ➠ Due to the slave trade, before the 19th century, more people arrived in the Americas from Africa than from any other region. ➠ In the first part of the journey, which could last several months, Africans were captured and marched from interior states to the Atlantic coast. On the coast they waited in crowded, unsanitary dungeons. ➠ The second part of the journey, the Middle Passage, involved traveling across the Atlantic Ocean, and it lasted up to three months. For most, the Middle Passage established permanent separation from their communities. Aboard slave ships Africans were humiliated, beaten, tortured, and raped and suffered from widespread disease and malnourishment. 15% of captive Africans perished in the Middle Passage. ➠ The third, or “final” passage, occurred when those who arrived at ports in the Americas were quarantined, resold, and transported domestically to distant locations of servitude—a process that could take as much time as the first and middle passages combined. 🔑 Key Question #2: How did the transatlantic slave trade destabilize West African societies? ➠ The slave trade increased monetary incentives to use violence to enslave neighboring societies, and wars between kingdoms were exacerbated by the prevalence of firearms received from trade with Europeans. ➠ Coastal states became wealthy from trade in goods and people, while interior states became unstable under the constant threat of capture and enslavement. ➠ To maintain local dominance and grow their wealth, African leaders sold soldiers and war captives from opposing ethnic groups. In some areas of the Americas, this led to a concentration of former African soldiers, which aided enslaved communities’ ability to revolt. ➠ As a result of the slave trade, African societies suffered from long-term instability and loss of kin who would have assumed leadership roles in their communities, raised families, and passed on their traditions. 🔑 Key Question #3: What were the key features and purposes of narratives written by formerly enslaved Africans? ➠ Formerly enslaved Africans detailed their experiences in genres such as slave narratives and poetry.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ Slave narratives serve as historical accounts, literary works, and political texts and are examined through interdisciplinary lenses. ➠ As political texts, slave narratives aimed to end slavery and the slave trade, demonstrate Black humanity, and advocate for the inclusion of people of African descent in American society. 2.3 Vocabulary unsanitary dungeons monetary incentives War captives Middle Passage Coastal states vs. interior states slave narratives Fifteen % perished Other Required Sources to Recall - Book excerpt: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself by Olaudah Equiano, 1789 (selection from chapter 2) - Poem :“On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley, 1773 Source Notes: Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a book of poetry. Her iconic portrait, attributed to the enslaved African American painter Scipio Moorehead, is the first known individual portrait of an African American. Topic 2.4 African Resistance on Slave Ships and the Antislavery Movement 🔑 Key Question: How did Africans resist their commodification and enslavement individually and collectively during the Middle Passage? ➠ Aboard slave ships, African captives resisted the trauma of deracination (de-rass-in-ation) (being uprooted from one's social/cultural/geographic environment), commodification (being treated as an item or a thing for sale, rather than human), and enslavement individually and collectively by: - staging hunger strikes (refusing to eat) - attempting to jump overboard rather than live enslaved - In order to work collectively, enslaved captives had to figure out how to overcome linguistic differences to form revolts ➠ Africans’ resistance made the slave trade more expensive and more dangerous, and it led to changes in the design of slave ships (e.g., the construction of barricades and inclusion of nets and guns). ➠ In 1839, more than 30 years after the abolition of the slave trade, a Mende captive from Sierra Leone, Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cinqué) led a group of enslaved Africans in one of the most famous revolts aboard a slave ship. During the revolt, the enslaved Africans took over the schooner La Amistad. After a trial that lasted two years, the Supreme Court granted the Mende captives their freedom. The trial generated public sympathy for the cause of abolition. (Images: Survivors of La Amistad, (top) Grabo, Marqu (bottom) Pona, Suma) 🔑 Key Question: What were the features of slave ship diagrams created during the era of the slave trade? ➠ Slave ship diagrams depict a systematic arrangement of captives that aimed to maximize profit by transporting as many people as possible; even so, the diagrams typically show only about half the number of enslaved people on any given ship.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ Slave ship diagrams show unsanitary and cramped conditions that increased incidence of disease, disability, and death during a trip that could last up to 90 days. ➠ Slave ship diagrams rarely include the features enslavers used to minimize resistance, such as guns, nets to prevent captives from jumping overboard, and iron instruments to force-feed those who resisted. 🔑 Key Question #2: How did abolitionists and Black artists utilize slave ship diagrams during and since the era of slavery. ➠ In the 18th and 19th centuries, White and Black antislavery activists circulated diagrams of slave ships to raise awareness of the dehumanizing conditions of the Middle Passage. ➠ Since abolition, Black visual and performance artists have repurposed the iconography of the slave ship to process historical trauma and honor the memory of their ancestors— the more than 12.5 million Africans who were forced onto over 36,000 known voyages for over 350 years. 2.4 Vocabulary People deracination raise awareness Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cinqué) Commodification La Amistad hunger strikes Supreme Court Case: United States v. The Amistad 90 day journey repurposed the iconography force-feed 36,000 known voyage Slave ship diagrams Source Notes - Courtroom Plea (formal statement from defendant) : Plea to the Jurisdiction of Cinquè and Others, 1839 - Courtroom Sketches: Sketches of the captive survivors from the Amistad trial, 1839 - In the 18th and 19th centuries, slave ship diagrams created a visual archive of commodification by depicting individual Africans as an anonymous, homogenous group of fungible goods for sale. - Today, the icon of the slave ship embodies a pivotal development in the shared history of communities of African descent—the birth of a global diaspora. - Stowage by Willie Cole, 1997: contemporary artist Willie Cole uses an everyday object (an iron) to symbolize the history of his ancestors—Africans brought through the Middle Passage to labor in the homes of their enslavers. The detailed vertical faces of the iron represent the various African communities that would have traveled in a slave ship, and the horizontal image represents the ship itself. Topic 2.5 Slave Auctions 🔑 Key Question: What were slave auctions like in the 19th-century U.S. South? ➠ Because of the development of chattel slavery to produce cash crops, the law that developed in the United States fueled white supremacy doctrine and allowed for the “legal” assault the bodies, minds, and spirits of enslaved Africans and their descendants. ➠ Those who resisted sale at auction were punished severely by whipping, torture, and mutilation—at times in front of their families and friends. 🔑 Key Question: How did the rise in cotton as a cash crop drive the  EMPOWERING HISTORIES growth of the domestic slave trade in the United States. ➠ Recall: Sugar production, the most valuable crop in the world, was largely the reason for the colonization of the Americas. The British North American colonies were too cold for sugar, however, places like New York and Pennsylvania, existed to grow cereal grains to feed the sugar producing colonies like Jamaica and Barbados. Virginia was warm enough to produce tobacco, but that cash crop was never nearly as valuable as sugar. The places warm enough to grow sugar were mostly populated by enslaved West Africans. - West African chattel slavery had been a part of the British Virginia colony since the beginning, but slavery did not make up the vast majority of United States society like it did in the Caribbean. - However, in the early 1800s, cotton replaced sugar as the most important crop in the world. The United States was warm enough to produce cotton. Cotton production would lead to enormous changes in American society and the lives of Black people with the borders of the U.S. ➠ The invention of the cotton gin increased U.S. production, profits, and dependency on cotton as a cash crop. 🔑 Key Question #2: How did the growth of the cotton industry in the U.S. displace enslaved African American families? ➠ The lower South (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas) was dominated by the slave-cotton system, where enslaved African Americans were especially valuable as commodities due to the demand for laborers. ➠ During the cotton boom in the first half of the 19th century, many African Americans were forcibly relocated through the domestic slave trade from the upper South (inland states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri) to the lower South. ➠ Marching hundreds of miles, over one million African Americans were displaced by this “Second Middle Passage”— over two-and-a-half times more people than had arrived from Africa during the original Middle Passage. This massive displacement was the largest forced migration in American history. ➠ Cotton also displaced many Indigenous communities. As the cotton boom began, the U.S. government ripped up treaties that it had made with American Indian nations and forced the removal of Indigenous communities off of their land in order to make the forests of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi available for large-scale cotton production. The most infamous of these cases was the removal of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw people during the Trail of Tears between 1830 and 1838. 🔑 Key Question: How did African American authors advanced the causes of abolition and equality in their writings about slave auctions? ➠ African American writers used various literary genres, including narratives and poetry, to articulate the physical and emotional effects of being sold at auction to unknown territory. ➠ African American writers sought to counter enslavers’ claims that slavery was a “benign institution” and to advance the cause of abolition. Context and explanation of “benign institution” *Definition of benign: gentle and kind ➠ Many of the founding fathers of the United States were enslavers. 41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were enslavers. 25 of the 55 Delegates to the Constitutional Convention were enslavers. The authors of the Constitution were enslavers and also knew that slavery was immoral. How do we know this? - The authors of the Constitution understood that their hypocrisy was an embarrassment. They were bragging about creating a free country in which human trafficking was legal. Most believed that slavery was an old fashioned economic model and not the future of the United States anyway. That is why,  EMPOWERING HISTORIES even though they referred to slavery and protected the rights of enslavers, they never used the word slavery in the Constitution. - The founding fathers of the United States were also the men who authored the Northwest ordinance which banned all slavery in what is today the midwest. In this way, they could blame the British for creating the institution while showing that they would never have allowed slavery at the start. (Many were enslavers, so yes, this is very hypocritical. This is about making oppressors feel better, but it is going to get worse. - The founding fathers also showed a distaste for slavery by putting a date on the end of the legal importing of enslaved people into the U.S. The U.S. government formally banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1808. This did not end slavery in the U.S. Instead, the enslaved population grew primarily through childbirth rather than new importations, increasing the supply of enslaved agricultural laborers. ➠ This was just about the same time that the cotton gin was invented and everything changed. Cotton was not profitable enough to be a real cash crop. It took way too long for humans to separate the seeds from the cotton. The cotton gin changed this and immediately, production of cotton became extremely valuable. The cotton gin increased U.S. production of cotton, profits, and dependency on cotton as a cash crop. ➠ The cotton boom meant that slavery expanded and became more and Map showing the spread of cotton more central to the expanding American economy, more than Americans could have ever imagined before the cotton boom. America prefers to see itself as a free and freedom loving nation. Would Americans rather be hypocritical billionaires and give up on their freedom loving identity? - No. American culture attempted to keep and expand the slavery system that created the enormous cotton wealth AND try to hold on to its “freedom loving identity.” - The result was to expand on the myth of race and further entrench its lies into American culture ➠ Perhaps the most famous example of the entrenching of racial mythology was when white supremist leaders attempted to claim that slavery “wasn’t that bad.” In fact, Senator John C. Calhoun from South Carolina argued that slavery was helpful to African Americans because it “civilized” a “race” that never had civilization before. (this is why AP African American Studies must start with African History in Unit 1!) Calhoun called slavery “the peculiar institution.” White supremacist historians who were sympathetic to Calhoun viewed slavery as a benign institution. ➠ The forced removal of Indigenous communities by the U.S. government through the Trail of Tears made lands available for large-scale cotton production. 2.5 Vocabulary Slave auctions cotton gin “Second Middle Passage” “Legal” assault on bodies and spirits counter enslavers’ claims largest forced migration in 1808: Banning of the “benign institution” American history. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade slave-cotton system Trail of Tears cotton gin cotton boom Required Sources to Recall - Slave Narrative: Solomon Northup’s description of the New Orleans Slave Market, 1841 - Poem: “The Slave Auction” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1854  EMPOWERING HISTORIES (2.5) Source Notes - Solomon Northup, a free Black musician who was captured and illegally sold into slavery on a cotton plantation in Louisiana, provided an eyewitness account in his narrative, Twelve Years a Slave. - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a poet, suffragist, and abolitionist was the first African American woman to publish a short story. Topic 2.6 Labor, Culture, and Economy 🔑 Key Question: What was the range and variety of specialized roles performed by enslaved people? ➠ Enslaved people of all ages and genders performed a wide variety of domestic, agricultural, and skilled labor in both urban and rural locales. ➠ In some areas, there were distinct roles separating domestic and agricultural laborers, although enslaved persons could be reallocated to another type of labor according to the preferences of their enslaver. ➠ Many enslaved people relied on skills developed in Africa, such as rice cultivation. Some African women hid rice seeds in their hair on their journeys across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. ➠ In addition to agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, and healers in the North and South. Once free, American Americans used these skills to provide for themselves and others. ➠ Some enslaved people were bound to institutions such as churches, factories, and colleges, rather than to an individual person. 🔑 Key Question #2a: How did slave labor systems enable the formation of African American musical and linguistic practices? 🔑 Key Question #2b: What caused differences in slave labor systems and what were the different effects on enslaved peoples lives, based on which system they were forced to work under? ➠ Enslaved agricultural laborers often worked in a gang system or a task system. ➠ Gang system: enslaved laborers worked in groups from sunup to sundown, under the watch and discipline of an overseer as they cultivated crops like cotton, sugar, and tobacco. Enslaved people working in gangs created work songs (in English) with syncopated rhythms to keep the pace of work. ➠ Task system: enslaved people worked individually until they met a daily quota, generally with less supervision. The task system was used for the cultivation of crops like rice and indigo. With less oversight, some enslaved people found the autonomy to maintain linguistic practices, such as the Gullah creole language that developed in the Carolina Lowcountry.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES 🔑 Key Question #3: What were the economic effects of enslaved people’s commodification and labor, within and outside of African American communities? ➠ Slavery fostered economic interdependence between the North and South. Cities that did not play a major role in the African slave trade nonetheless benefited from the economy created by slavery. ➠ Enslaved people were foundational to the American economy, even though they and their descendants were alienated from the wealth that they both embodied and produced. ➠ Over centuries, slavery deeply entrenched wealth disparities along the U.S.’s racial lines. Enslaved African Americans had no wages to pass down to descendants and no legal right to accumulate property, and individual exceptions to these laws depended on their enslavers’ decision. 2.6 Vocabulary skilled labor roles bound to institutions Gullah creole separating domestic and gang system N./S. economic interdependence agricultural laborers task system foundational to Amer. Econ. skills from Africa: rice cultivation work songs: syncopated rhythms racial wealth disparities specialized trades autonomy to maintain linguistic practices Required Sources to Recall - Slave Narrative: Solomon Northup’s description of the New Orleans Slave Market, 1841 - Poem: “The Slave Auction” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1854 - Broadside for an auction of enslaved persons at the Charleston Courthouse, 1859 Source Notes - The broadside illustrates the wide range of tasks enslaved people performed (e.g., engineer, ship caulker, ironer), their ages, and other characteristics, such as the languages spoken and their racial designations. It also captures the lingering influence of French and Spanish racial nomenclature on New Orleans; enslaved people are listed as “black,” “mulatto,” and “griffe” (three quarters Black and one quarter Indigenous). - The rice fanner basket conveys the transfer of agricultural and artistic knowledge from Africa to the U.S. The coiled features of African American basket-making traditions in the Lowcountry resemble those currently made in Senegal and Angola. Context for 2.7 (and 2.12) British Colonies become the United States: Slavery and American Law 🔑 Key Question: What role did African Americans play in the American Revolution? ➠ In 1776, British colonists in North America rebelled against their mother country. The rebels justified their rebellion with the Declaration of Independence in which Thomas Jefferson, an enslaver, stated “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” ➠ About 25,000 African Americans fought on both sides of the Revolution. ➠ The vast majority of enslaved West Africans supported British victory. In fact, the Colonial Governor of Virginia announced in the Dunmore Proclamation, that all enslaved people who liberated themselves from their Patriot enslavers would gain freedom. Many of these men then volunteered to fight with the British. One of the great stories of freedom during the war were the 100,000 people who were liberated from labor camps. Of course, a few of the ½ million enslaved people in the region at the time did fight with patriots, the vast majority supported loyalist goals.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ When the Continental Army (the rebel army) started running out of troops, some Northern states took the British idea and promised to grant freedom to enslaved people who volunteered. By the end of the war, 1/5 of all U.S. Northern regiments were Black. It was the most racially integrated the U.S. Army would ever be until after World War 2, nearly 200 years later. 🔑 Key Question: What were the effects of the American Revolution on African Americans? ➠ Eventually, the rebellious colonists won the war and created the newly independent United States. This had various effects on African Americans within the country. ➠ During and after the American Revolution, increased awareness of inequalities in society motivated some individuals and groups to call for the abolition of Northern slavery. Pennsylvania was the first to do it during the Revolution, By 1804, slavery was gone in the North. ➠ Continuity of Southern Slavery: However, despite the “enlightened” language of the Declaration, the vast majority of people suffering in the chattel slavery system were not granted freedom. African Americans would continue to be forced to live in Southern labor camps for another eight decades. ➠ Many historians see the Revolution as a turning point for strengthening of American “racial” myths and beliefs. The majority of the founding fathers claimed ownership of enslaved people. They also sought to celebrate their new country as a “free country.” So how could America be celebrated as a place of free people? Black lives had to be dehumanized. Those holding liberty to be “inalienable” while also holding Black men, women, and children as slaves, were bound to end by holding “race” to be a self-evident truth. Topic 2.7 Slavery and American Law: Slave Codes and Landmark Cases 🔑 Key Question: How did American law impact the lives and citizenship rights of enslaved and free African Americans between the 17th and 19th centuries? ➠ Slavery and the Constitution: the framers of the U.S. constitution hotly debated the topic of slavery. ➠ Article 1 and Article 4 of the U.S. Constitution refer to slavery but avoid using the terms slave or slavery because the framers sought to cover up their own hypocrisy of boasting about the creation of a “free country” that was based on chattel slavery. “Slave” appeared in an early draft but was removed. (These terms slave and slavery appear do appear in the Constitution today, but were not added until 1865 when the 13th Amendment abolished slavery.) The Constitution strengthened and protected slavery in these ways: - Three-fifths Clause: “Slave states” would be allowed to count the people that they forced into chattel slavery as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of seats in the House of Representatives. That means they would count African American people in their states (who they otherwise denied basic human rights) in order to get more power to keep people enslaved. - Fugitive Slave Clause: “free states” had to return people who had escaped slavery - Electoral College: The President of the U.S. is not chosen by the people’s votes, but rather by a points system awarded to each state. The South created this scheme because they realized that the North was becoming more aggressive in its antislavery views and also had a larger population. They thought slavery would be abolished soon if the President was directly voted in by the people.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ Before the American Revolution, British colonies created Slave codes which defined chattel slavery as a race-based, inheritable, lifelong condition and included restrictions against freedom of movement, congregation, possessing weapons, and wearing fine fabrics, among other activities. These regulations manifested in slaveholding societies throughout the Americas, including the Code Noir and Código Negro in French and Spanish colonies. ➠ Slave codes and other laws deepened racial divides in American society by reserving opportunities for upward mobility and protection from enslavement for White people on the basis of their race and by denying opportunities to Black people on the same premise. ➠ Anti-Black laws in free states after the American Revolution. Some free states enacted laws to deny African Americans opportunities for advancement. (examples:) - Some free states barred entry of free Black people into the state. - Some states enacted restrictions to keep free Black men from voting (e.g., New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut) and testifying against Whites in court (e.g., Ohio). - By 1870, with the ratification of the 15th Amendment, only Wisconsin and Iowa had given Black men the right to vote. 🔑 Key Question #2: How did Black resistance to slavery lead to the development of slave codes? ➠ South Carolina’s 1740 slave code was updated in response to enslaved people’s resistance during the Stono Rebellion in 1739 (See 2.11). The 1740 code classified all Black people and the Indigenous communities that did not submit to the colonial government as nonsubjects and presumed enslaved people. - South Carolina’s 1740 slave code prohibited enslaved people from gathering, drumming, running away, learning to read, or rebelling. It condemned to death any enslaved persons that tried to defend themselves from attack by a White person. ➠ Legal codes and landmark cases intertwined to define the status of African Americans by denying them citizenship rights and protections. Dred Scott’s freedom suit (1857) resulted in the Supreme Court’s decision that African Americans, enslaved and free, were not and could never become citizens of the U.S. 2.7 Vocabulary U.S. Constitution Code Noir (French colonies) S.C. 1740 Slave Code 13th Amendment Código Negro (Spanish colonies) Stono Rebellion (1739) Slave codes deepened racial divides Dred Scott Case (1857) race-based chattel slavery Anti-Black laws in free states Required Sources to Recall - Slave code law: Excerpts from the South Carolina slave code, 1740 - Slave code law: Articles 1–10 from the Louisiana slave code, 1724 - U.S. Constitution: Article 1, Section 2 and Article 4, Section 2, 1787 - Legal Plea: Excerpts: Dred Scott’s plea & Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857 - Source Notes - Louisiana’s Code Noir contained restrictions similar to those in South Carolina’s slave code, along with a greater emphasis on Catholic instruction and regulations that acknowledged the possibility of marriage between enslaved people but forbid interracial relationships. - The Dred Scott decision was overturned by the Reconstruction Amendments (the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution). - By 1860, Black men could only vote in five of the six New England states (Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire).  EMPOWERING HISTORIES Topic 2.8 The Concept of Race and Reproduction of Status 🔑 Key Question: What is race and racism? Where did it come from? ➠ Why did slavery happen? Is it because people were just too ignorant and racist? NO, that is a myth! ➠ Racism did not cause slavery. Slavery created racism. “Race” was invented to justify slavery. This is racism. ➠ Race is not real: The concept of race is not based on biology. “Race” is a lie that was created in the 1500s to justify getting rich in extremely immoral ways. ➠ Believing that “race” is real is ignorance, but the story of slavery does not start with ignorance. Ignorance is an end product. The story begins with laws. ➠ Though the new practice of Chattel Slavery was obviously immoral it made some men extremely wealthy. As sugar became the most valuable crop in the world, human traffickers sought ways to justify the atrocities that they were committing so they invented racism to claim that their crimes were “natural” and their extreme wealth was acquired through legal and legitimate means. The laws they invented claimed that “race” was real and that it was legal to dehumanize people depending on their “race.” This led to unequal outcomes which led people in later generations to the “racist idea” that the lower status of “black people” was “natural” and based on “natural” lack of intellect and ability. When the humans who had been legally classified as “black” challenged this unnatural and immoral system, the people who benefitted from the system became angry. Their status and view of the natural world was shaken and threatened and they responded with hate. Therefore, ignorant racist hate did not create the racist laws of slavery. The racist laws of slavery produced ignorance and hate.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES 🔑 Key Question #2: How did partus sequitur ventrem impact African American families and inform the emergence of racial taxonomies in the United States. ➠ Partus sequitur ventrem, a 17th-century law, defined a child’s legal status based on the status of its mother and held significant consequences for enslaved African Americans. ➠ Partus codified hereditary racial slavery in the U.S. by ensuring that enslaved African American women’s children would inherit their status as property, which invalidated African Americans’ claims to their children. ➠ Partus was designed to prohibit the mixed-race children of Black women from inheriting the free status of their father (the custom in English common law). ➠ Partus gave male enslavers the right to deny responsibility for the children they fathered with enslaved women (most often through assault) and to commodify enslaved women’s reproductive lives. 🔑 Key Question #3: How did racial concepts and classifications emerge along with ideas of status? ➠ Race is not real: The concept of race is not based on biology. More genetic difference and variation appears within racial groups than between racial groups. Concepts and classifications of racial types emerged in tandem with systems of enslavement. ➠ Phenotype (e.g., skin color, hair texture) contributes largely to perceptions of racial identity. During the era of slavery, racial categories were also defined by law, regardless of phenotype. Legal statutes like partus sequitur ventrem defined racial categories and tied them to rights and status (e.g., enslaved, free, citizen) in order to perpetuate slavery over generations. ➠ In the U.S., race classification was determined on the basis of hypodescent. Prior to the Civil War, states differed on the percentage of ancestry that defined a person as White or Black. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, a practice known as the “one-drop rule” classified a person with any degree of African descent as part of a singular, inferior status. ➠ Although many African Americans had European or Indigenous ancestry, race classification prohibited them from embracing multiracial or multiethnic heritage. 2.10 Vocabulary Partus sequitur ventrem race is not real “One-drop rule” legal status of mother phenotype race classification and denial of commodification of enslaved race classification multiethnic heritage women’s reproduction systems hypodescent Required Sources to Recall: Colonial Law: Laws of Virginia, Act XII, General Assembly, 1662 Topic 2.9 Creating African American Culture 🔑 Key Question: How did African American forms of self-expression in art, music, and language that combine influences from diverse African cultures with local sources? ➠ African American creative expression drew upon blended influences from ancestors, community members, and local European and Indigenous cultures.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ Africans’ descendants in the U.S. added their aesthetic influences as they made pottery and established a tradition of quilt making as a medium of storytelling and memory keeping ➠ African Americans drew from varied African and European influences in the construction of instruments such as the banjo, drums, and rattles from gourds in order to recreate instruments similar to those in West Africa. ➠ Enslaved Africans arrived in the United States with knowledge of both African and European languages. Africans who had participated in long-distance trade were accustomed to developing a lingua franca (or common language) to communicate across languages. Enslaved African Americans continued this practice in the United States and developed creole languages, such as Gullah, which combines elements from West African and European languages. 🔑 Key Question: How didenslaved African Americans adapted African musical elements from their ancestors and influenced the development of American musical genres? ➠ Enslaved people adapted Christian hymns they learned and combined rhythmic and performative elements from Africa (e.g., call and response, clapping, improvisation) with biblical themes, creating a distinct American musical genre. This became the foundation of later American music genres, including gospel and the blues. ➠ Senegambians (such as the Wolof and Mandinka) and West Central Africans arrived in large numbers in Louisiana, which influenced the development of American blues. American blues contains the same musical system as fodet from the Senegambia region. 🔑 Key Question: What were the multiple functions and significance of spirituals? ➠ African Americans’ religious practices served social, spiritual, and political purposes. ➠ Musical and faith traditions combined in the U.S. in the form of spirituals (also called “jubilee songs” and “sorrow songs”—the songs enslaved people sang to articulate their hardships and their hopes. ➠ Enslaved people used spirituals to resist the dehumanizing conditions and injustice of enslavement, express their creativity, and communicate strategic information, such as plans to run away, warnings, and methods of escape. ➠ The lyrics of spirituals often had double meanings. These songs used biblical themes of redemption and deliverance to alert enslaved people to opportunities to run away via the Underground Railroad. ➠ Spirituals reflect African Americans’ African heritage and American identity. They preserve rhythms and performance styles from West Africa and express contemporary experiences in America. 2.9 Vocabulary quilt making call and response Senegambians fodet leads to banjo,drums, gourd rattles musical improvisation invention of the blues spirituals double meaning of spiritual lyrics  EMPOWERING HISTORIES (2.9) Required Sources to Recall: - Photo of instrument: Gourd head banjo, c. 1859 - Photo of pottery: Storage jar by David Drake, 1858: Despite bans on literacy for African Americans, David Drake, an enslaved potter in SouthCarolina, exercised creative expression by inscribing short poems on the jars he created on a range of topics including love, family, spirituality, and slavery. - Photo of quit: Cream and Red Appliqued Quilted Bedcover, Circa 1850 - Slave Narrative: “My Bondage and My Freedom” by Frederick Douglass, 1855 (sequel to his famous biography): Enslaved people maintained a range of spiritual beliefs, including African-derived beliefs, syncretic forms of Christianity, and Islam. For enslaved Afro-descendants, Christianity animated political action and justified African Americans’ pursuit of liberation. - Song performance: Contemporary gospel performance of “Steal Away”: African performative elements are present in the ring shout found among the Gullah Geechee community in Georgia and South Carolina. - Song Lyrics: “Steal Away,” mid-19th century: “Steal Away” was documented and composed by Wallace Willis, a formerly enslaved Black person in Choctaw territory in Mississippi who was displaced to Oklahoma territory during the Trail of Tears. Topic 2.10 Black Pride, Identity, and the Question of Naming 🔑 Key Question: How did changing demographics and popular debates about African Americans’ identity influence the terms they used to identify themselves in the 19th century and beyond? ➠ Naming and Self-identity are extremely personal matters. During the history of racial chattel slavery in the Americas, enslavers asserted that they had the right to name enslaved people. Self naming has long been a n important resistance strategy to oppressive systems that asserts agency and humanity. Both patterns of self-naming and group identification change over time. Names can be used to reclaim and redefine individual and collective identity. From the nineteenth century onward, African Americans described themselves through a range of ethnonyms (names of ethnic groups, racial groups, and nationalities), such as AfroAmerican, African American, and Black. ➠ After the U.S. banned international slave trading in 1808, the percentage of African- born people in the African American population declined (despite the importing of enslaved Africans continuing illegally). ➠ The American Colonization Society was founded during the same era by White leaders seeking to exile the growing free Black population to Africa. In response, many Black people emphasized their American identity by rejecting the term African, the most common term for people of African descent in the U.S. until the late 1820s. Note on the origin of “African American”: In 1988 civil rights activist Rev. Jesse L. Jackson promoted the use of the term “African American” to identify the shared cultural heritage and community of the descendants of enslaved Africans who are born in the United States. 2.10 Vocabulary Naming and Self-identity American Colonization Society Black people’s rejection of term Decline in African born population “African” of African Americans Required Sources to Recall: - Press clippings/ Letter to editor debates: Selections of letters written to newspapers from Call and Response, 1831–1841 including Freedom’s Journal, The Liberator, The Colored American, and the Minutes of the Fifth Annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color in the United States) - Beginning in the 1830s, African Americans began to hold political meetings, known as Colored Conventions, across the U.S. and Canada. These meetings foregrounded their shared heritage and housed debates about identity and self-identification in African American communities.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES Topic 2.11 The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose 🔑 Key Question: What impact did the Spanish government have on actions of African Americans enslaved in British colonies? ➠ Founded in Florida in 1565, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of African American and European origin in the U.S. Beginning in the 17th century, enslaved refugees escaping Georgia and the Carolinas fled to St. Augustine, seeking asylum in Spanish Florida, which offered freedom to enslaved people who converted to Catholicism. (asylum = protection/shelter) ➠ In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida established a fortified settlement under the leadership of Francisco Menéndez, an enslaved Senegambian who fought against the English in the Yamasee War and found refuge in St. Augustine. The settlement, called Fort Mose, was the first sanctioned free Black town in what is now the U.S. ➠ The emancipation from slavery offered by Spanish Florida to slaves fleeing the British colonies inspired the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina in 1739. - On Sept. 9, early on a Sunday morning, about 20 enslaved people gathered at a spot near the Stono River. They had pre-planned their rebellion for this day. Stopping first at a firearms shop, they killed the owner and supplied themselves with guns. Led by Jemmy, an enslaved man from the Angola region, the group grew to nearly 100. They carried a sign that said “liberty.” They beat drums and sang. - Many of the enslaved people participating in the Stono Rebellion were from the Kingdom of Kongo (present-day Angola), and they were Portuguese speakers familiar with Catholicism. - They set fire to plantations and marched toward sanctuary in Spanish Florida. - Eventually, a colonial militia caught up with the group and a firefight ensued, and some of the rebels escaped. The militia rounded up the liberated, decapitating them and setting their heads on posts as a lesson to other enslaved people. The tally of the dead was 21 “whites” and 44 enslaved people killed. - Presumably, dozens in Jemmy’s group were able to escape and made it to Florida. ➠ One year after the Stono Rebellion, the British province of South Carolina passed South Carolina Slave Code of 1740. It was a restrictive slave code that prohibited African Americans from organizing, drumming, learning to read, or moving abroad, including to other colonial territories. It condemned to death any enslaved persons that tried to defend themselves from attack by a White person. ➠ One month after passage of the 1740 Slave Code, British colonial forces invaded Florida, eventually seizing and destroying Fort Mose. 2.11 Vocabulary People Asylum in Spanish Florida Stono Rebellion, 1739 Francisco Menéndez Fort Mose South Carolina Slave Code, 1740 Jemmy  EMPOWERING HISTORIES (2.11) Required Sources to Recall: - Primary Source: Letter from Governor of Florida to His Majesty, 1739 - Primary Source: Excerpt from an Account of the Stono Rebellion, 1739 (first paragraph) - Artifacts: From Fort Mose - Watercolor: Fort Mose Topic 2.12 Legacies of the Haitian Revolution 🔑 Key Question: What was the historical and cultural significance of the Haitian Revolution? ➠ The American Revolution unleashes a series of Revolutions to remove Kings based on enlightenment principles of individual freedom. The French Revolution followed and went further than the American Revolution and granted equality to all men and abolished slavery (for a short time). This had a major impact on the Caribbean island that we know as Haiti. ➠ France’s Saint-Domingue colony (Haiti) was not just a profitable sugar island. It was the richest colony in the world and produced more sugar than all other Caribbean islands combined. Led by former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture (too SAN loo vehr TOOR), Haitian slaves completed the first successful slave revolt in history and abolished slavery in Haiti. ➠ Radical revolutionaries in France recognized equal status of all Haitians as fellow Frenchmen. Toussaint became Governor. - However, when Napoleon took over France at the end of the French Revolution, he sent an army to Haiti to try to reimpose slavery. - Toussaint L'Ouverture was captured and died in a French prison. - However, yellow fever struck Napoleon’s troops and the Haitians of African descent were able to defeat Napoleon’s sick troops and declare independence for Haiti. - This was the bloodiest revolution of the era (far bloodier than the American and French Revolutions.) ➠ The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was the only uprising of enslaved people that resulted in overturning a colonial, slaveholding government. It transformed a European colony (Saint-Domingue) into a Black republic free of slavery (Haiti) and created the second independent nation in the Americas, after the U.S. ➠ The 1805 Haitian Constitution reversed prevailing functions of racial categories in the Atlantic world, in which “Black” often signified an outsider or noncitizen. Instead, it declared all citizens of Haiti to be Black. By uniting the multiethnic residents of the island under a single racial category, it removed ethno-racial distinctions and reframed Black as an identity that signified citizenship and belonging. ➠ The Haitian Revolution had a broad impact: - France lost the most lucrative colony in the Caribbean. - The cost of fighting Haitians prompted Napoleon to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States. This sale nearly doubled the size of the U.S. and also increased the land available for the expansion of slavery. - France temporarily abolished slavery (from 1794 to 1802) throughout the empire, in colonies like Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES - The destruction of the plantation slavery complex in Haiti shifted opportunities in the market for sugar production to the U.S., Cuba, and Brazil. - The Haitian Revolution brought an influx of White planters and enslaved Black refugees to U.S. cities like Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia and increased anxieties about the spread of slave revolts. 🔑 Key Question #2: What was the role of maroons in the Haitian Revolution? ➠ Afro-descendants who escaped slavery to establish free communities were known as maroons. ➠ During the Haitian Revolution, maroons disseminated information across different groups and organized attacks. Many of the enslaved freedom fighters were former soldiers who were enslaved during civil wars in the Kingdom of Kongo and sent to Haiti. 🔑 Key Question #3: What were the impacts of the Haitian Revolution on African diaspora communities and Black political thought? ➠ For some African Americans, Haiti’s independence and abolition of slavery highlighted the unfulfilled promises of the American Revolution. ➠ The Haitian Revolution inspired uprisings in other African diaspora communities, such as the Louisiana Slave Revolt (1811, more details in 2.13), one of the largest on U.S. soil, and the Malê Uprising of Muslim slaves (1835), one of the largest revolts in Brazil. ➠ The legacy of the Haitian Revolution had an enduring impact on Black political thinking, serving as a symbol of Black freedom and sovereignty. 2.12 Vocabulary People Haitian Revolution France’s temporary ban of slavery Toussaint L’Ouverture 1st successful slave revolt maroons Black Republic Louisiana Slave Revolt 1811 reversed racial category meanings Malê Uprising of Muslim slaves in Brazil 1835 Napoleon and the Louisiana Purchase symbol of Black sovereignty Required Sources to Recall: - Primary Source: “The Preliminary Declaration from the Constitution of Haiti, 1805” - Primary Source: Frederick Douglass’s lecture on Haiti at the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893: Douglass had been US minister to Haiti two years before. - Modern American painting: L’Ouverture, 1986, To Preserve Their Freedom, 1988, and Strategy, 1994, from The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture series by Jacob Lawrence Topic 2.13 Resistance and Revolts in the U.S. 🔑 Key Question: What were some daily forms of resistance demonstrated by enslaved people? ➠ Covert Resistance to slavery: (less overt) Enslaved people continually resisted their enslavement by minimize the amount of energy they expended toiling in fields, by slowing the pace of work, feigning illness, breaking farming tools and sabotaging crops. ➠ Daily methods of resistance helped galvanize and sustain the larger movement toward abolition.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ Cultural resistance: Enslaved people held onto African cultural traditions, such as religious worship practices, which remain visible today among their descendants. - Religious services and churches became instrumental in galvanizing daily forms of resistance to slavery. They served as multifunctional sites for community gathering, celebration, mourning, sharing information, and, in the North, political organizing. 🔑 Key Question #2: What were the inspirations, goals, and struggles of different revolts and abolitionist organizing led by enslaved and free Afrodescendants throughout the Americas? ➠ In some areas of the Americas, the transatlantic slave trade led to a concentration of former African soldiers, which aided enslaved communities’ ability to revolt. This is specifically documented in the Stono Rebellion and the Haitian Revolution. ➠ 1526 Spanish Settlement Revolt: In 1526, Africans enslaved in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) were brought to aid Spanish exploration along the South Carolina–Georgia coastline. - The small North American settlement quickly faced severe conditions, including dysentery and conflict with Native Americans. After the Spanish leader’s death in October 1526, internal strife led to the first recorded slave revolt in mainland North America. Enslaved Africans set fire to the settlement and escaped into nearby Indigenous communities. Only 150 Spanish settlers survived and they abandoned their settlement and returned to Santo Domingo by July 1527. ➠ Gabriel’s Rebellion, 1800: Summary written by Dr. Hassan Kwame Jefferies: In 1800, an enslaved blacksmith named Gabriel, who lived and worked near Richmond, plotted to topple (Virginia's) slaveholding regime. Gabriel planned to lead a group of armed rebels to Richmond to seize the state capital. Along the way, he intended to recruit fellow enslaved people and was willing to kill anyone who dared to stop them. And to invoke the spirit of the American Revolution, as well as to call out the hypocrisy of American revolutionaries who refused to abolish slavery, he planned to carry a banner that read “Death or Liberty.” - Gabriel’s bold bid to secure his freedom and spark a rebellion ended before it could really begin. A torrential rain the night of the insurrection delayed the blacksmith’s plans just long enough for the plot to be revealed by a pair of enslaved turncoats. - Gabriel and 26 others would eventually be executed. The freedom-seekers, however, showed neither regret nor remorse. - “I have nothing more to offer than what General Washington would have had to offer had he been taken by the British and put to trial by them,” declared one of Gabriel’s compatriots. “I have adventured my life in endeavoring to obtain the liberty of my countrymen, and am a willing sacrifice in their cause.” - (See required source: Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Rufus King) The revolt caused such alarm that some in Virginia, including President Jefferson, began discussing the idea of transporting some enslaved people to a colony in Africa. In the end, Virginia passed laws further restricting the movements and lives of African Americans. ➠ In the pre-dawn gloom of January 1811, Charles Deslondes started the largest slave revolt in U.S. soil. Deslondes was an enslaved overseer at a labor camp known as the Andry Plantation in St. Johns Parish, Louisiana. Deslondes was inspired by the Haitian Revolution and he sought to spark a similar revolt throughout all of Louisiana (it is rumored that Deslondes may have actually been born in Haiti, but there is no documentation to prove it). - The German Coast Uprising, also known as the Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811 lasted for three days. Deslondes organized support across local plantations and maroon communities (including self-emancipated people from Haiti) and led them on a march toward New Orleans. The freedom fighters included both men and women who marched in military style while beating drums and carrying flags and banners. They were armed with machetes, axes, and clubs. - They went from plantation to plantation, intent on liberation. The white population in the area fled to New Orleans while Deslondes' group reached up to 500 people.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES - Deslondes' group made it 22 miles before the revolt was brutally crushed by local militias and federal troops. 95 of the freedom fighters lost their lives in battle or by execution after short court trials. Their heads were placed on pikes around St. John’s Parish as a warning to all enslaved people. Deslondes was tortured to death near the battlefield. Up to 100 of the Desolandes group escaped into the swamps. - Historian Daniel Rasmussen argues that despite the brutal outcome, this revolt should not be seen as a failure because it was one of the first major blows that led to the eventual downfall of slavery as it struck a major blow to the myth of the “happy slave” that enslavers perpetuated. ➠ In 1841, Madison Washington, an enslaved cook, led a mutiny aboard the slave brig, Creole, which transported enslaved people from Virginia to New Orleans. Washington seized the ship and sailed it to the Bahamas, knowing that the British had ended slavery in the West Indian colonies in 1833. As a result, nearly 130 African Americans gained their freedom in the Bahamas. ➠ Interregional impact of slave revolts: Shaped by common struggles, inspirations, and goals, a revolt in one region often influenced the circumstances and political actions of enslaved Afro-descendants in another region. ➠ Religion inspired resistance to slavery in the form of rebellions, such as those led by Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey, and the activism of abolitionists like Maria Stewart, Frederick Douglass, and Henry Highland Garnet. (More on these revolts in 2.19) 2.13 Vocabulary People covert Resistance German Coast Uprising, 1811 Gabriel concentration of former African (aka Louisiana Revolt of 1811) Charles Deslondes soldiers Interregional impact of slave revolts Madison Washington 1526 Spanish Settlement Revolt Religion inspired revolts Gabriel’s Rebellion Required Sources to Recall: - Primary Source: Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Rufus King (another founding father), 1802 Topic 2.14 Black Organizing in the North: Freedom, Women’s Rights, and Education 🔑 Key Question: How did free Black people in the North and South organize to support their communities? ➠ Throughout the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the free Black population grew in the U.S. By 1860, free people were 12% of the Black population. Although there were more free Black people in the South than in the North, their numbers were small in proportion to the enslaved population. ➠ The smaller number of free Black people in the North and South built community through institutions that thrived in cities like Philadelphia, New York, and New Orleans. They created mutual-aid societies that funded the growth of Black schools, businesses, and independent churches and supported the work of Black writers and speakers. 🔑 Key Question #2: What techniques did Black women activists use to advocate for social justice and reform? ➠ In the 19th century, Black women activists used speeches and publications to call attention to the need to consider gender and Black women’s experiences in antislavery discussions. ➠ Maria Stewart was a free Black woman from New England and was the first Black woman to publish a political manifesto. She was also one of the first American women to give a  EMPOWERING HISTORIES public address. Her advocacy in the 1830s contributed to the first wave of the feminist movement. She demanded equal rights for women along with the case of abolition. ➠ “Ain’t I a Woman:” by Sojourner Truth might be the most iconic feminist speech in modern world history. Truth had been born in slavery in New York and repeatedly sold away from her family and raped. At the age of 29 she “walked” away from slavery (she made a point that she “didn’t run away, running away would imply the act was evil. She walked away with great pride and one of her 5 children” Not only did Truth become involved in the abolitionist movement, but like Stewart, she saw the combined need for abolition and feminism. In her most famous speech, she described all the things she could do perfectly well, and then asked the audience: “Ain’t I a Woman?” Now, Truth’s upbringing in NY meant that Dutch was her first language. The famous version of the speech was written 12 years later by a journalist who obviously changed some of her words because it was written in a Black southern dialect that Truth did not speak. 🔑 Key Question #3: How and why is Black women’s activism historically and culturally significant? ➠ Black women activists called attention to the ways that they experienced the combined effects of race and gender discrimination. ➠ Black women activists fought for abolitionism and the rights of women, paving a path for the women’s suffrage movement. ➠ By highlighting the connected nature of race, gender, and class in their experiences, Black women’s activism anticipated political debates that remain central to African American politics. 2.14 Vocabulary People Growth of free Black population combined effects of race and gender discrimination Maria Stewart mutual-aid societies women’s suffrage movement Black women activists Required Sources to Recall: - Speech: “Why Sit Here and Die” by Maria W. Stewart, 1832 Topic 2.15 Maroon Societies and Autonomous Black Communities 🔑 Key Question: What were the characteristics of maroon communities and where did they emerged across the African diaspora? ➠ Maroon communities emerged throughout the African diaspora, often in remote and hidden environments beyond the purview of enslavers. Some communities lasted for just a few years, while others continued for a full century. ➠ Maroon communities consisted of self-emancipated (people who “ran away” from slavery) people and those born free in the community. ➠ In maroon communities, formerly enslaved people created autonomous (free) spaces where African-based languages and cultural practices blended and flourished, even as maroons faced illness, starvation, and the constant threat of capture. ➠ African Americans formed maroon communities in areas such as the Great Dismal Swamp (between Virginia and North Carolina) and within Indigenous communities.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ Beyond the U.S., maroon communities emerged in Jamaica, Suriname, Colombia, and Brazil. They were called palenques in Spanish America and quilombos in Brazil. The Quilombo dos Palmares, the largest maroon society in Brazil, lasted nearly 100 years. - Quilombo comes from the word kilombo (war camp) in Kimbundu, a Bantu language in West Central Africa. In 17th-century Angola, Queen Njinga created a kilombo, which was a sanctuary community for enslaved runaways where she offered military training for defense against the Portuguese. 🔑 Key Question #2: What were the maroon wars and what was their purpose? ➠ Maroon leaders and their militias often staged wars (as distinct from slave revolts) against colonial governments to protect their collective freedom and autonomy. Others made treaties with colonial governments that required them to assist in the extinguishing of slave rebellions. ➠ Bayano was a captive from Yoruba people (modern Nigeria and Benin). He led a maroon community of over a thousand people in wars against the Spanish for several years in Panama starting in 1552. After five years, his community was destroyed but he was set free by a Spanish governor who did not see a crime in wanting to be free. He united another community and continued his raids on plantations throughout Panama. He was captured and then sent to Peru where he was treated as a mini celebrity. He was later shipped to Spain where his expenses were paid by the royal treasury. ➠ Jamaica’s Maroons, led by the legendary Queen Nanny, were the first enslaved Africans in the New World to reclaim their freedom through successful resistance. Born around 1685 in Ghana, Nanny endured the Middle Passage and then escaped enslavement on the island and joined the Maroons. - Jamaica’s Maroons were already an established culture decades before Nanny’s arrival. They had escaped bondage in 1655 when Spanish and British colonizers battled for control of the country. The Maroons fled to hard-to-reach mountainous areas that made it all but impossible for their former masters to capture them. - In Jamaica, Nanny and her siblings established free Black communities. Known for her strategic raids against plantations, Nanny is credited with freeing nearly 1,000 enslaved people. Despite heavy losses fighting with British soldiers, the Maroons persisted. - Queen Nanny herself is said to have been killed by the British in the 1730s, but the exact date of her passing is unclear (some claim she lived into the 1750s). The Maroons carried on after her death and her brother Cudjoe was an integral part of signing a treaty with Britain in 1738/1739. The peace treaty granted the Maroons five hundred acres of land. The settlement that emerged there was named New Nanny Town. - Today, Nanny is honored as a National Hero of Jamaica. 2.15 Vocabulary People Maroon communities Great Dismal Swamp Bayano Self-emancipated Quilombo dos Palmares Queen Nanny autonomous spaces Maroon Wars  EMPOWERING HISTORIES Topic 2.16 Diasporic Connections: Slavery and Freedom in Brazil 🔑 Key Question: What were the features of the enslavement of Africans in Brazil? ➠ More enslaved Africans disembarked in Brazil than anywhere else in the Americas. Approximately half of the 10 million Africans who survived the Middle Passage landed in Brazil, where they were forced to labor in various enterprises such as sugar plantations, gold mines, coffee plantations, cattle ranching, and production of food and textiles for domestic consumption. ➠ The massive number of African-born people who arrived in Brazil formed communities that preserved cultural practices. Some of those practices still exist in Brazil, such as capoeira (a martial art developed by enslaved Africans that combines music and call-and-response singing) and the congada (a celebration of the King of Kongo and Our Lady of the Rosary). 🔑 Key Question: Explain shifts in the numbers of enslaved Africans in Brazil and the United States during the 19th century. ➠ During the 19th century in Brazil, the number of enslaved Africans steadily decreased as Brazil’s free Black population grew significantly, due to the increased frequency of manumission (release from slavery). Accordingly, by 1888 when Brazil became the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, approximately 4 million people in Brazil with African ancestry were already free, and Brazil’s abolition freed the approximately 1.5 million Africans still enslaved at that point. ➠ Even after the 1808 ban against the importing of enslaved Africans, the number of enslaved people in the United States increased steadily throughout the 19th century as children of enslaved people were born into enslavement themselves. Approximately 4 million Africans remained enslaved in the U.S.—about 50% of all enslaved people in the Americas—at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. 2.19 Vocabulary 5 million Africans to Brazil Capoeira and congada Preservation of cultural practices in Brazil Increased manumission in Brazil Difference in U.S./Brazil Free/Enslaved Black population ratio  EMPOWERING HISTORIES Source Notes: (2.16) - The source photographs portray enslaved people who arrived in Brazil as children, likely during the collapse of the Oyo Empire (Nigeria) in the early 1830s. - The drawing displays the diversity of labor forms and a festival by the brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary, which speaks to the ways enslaved people in Brazil recreated Afro-Catholic customs from West Central Africa. Topic 2.17 African Americans in Indigenous Territory 🔑 Key Question: How did the expansion of slavery in the U.S. South impact relations between Black and Indigenous peoples? ➠ Some African American freedom seekers (maroons) found refuge among the Seminoles in Florida and were welcomed as kin. They fought alongside the Seminoles in resistance to relocation during the Second Seminole War from 1835 to 1842. ➠ Some African Americans were enslaved by Indigenous people in the five large nations (Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole). When Indigenous enslavers were forcibly removed from their lands by the federal government during the Trail of Tears, they brought the Black people they had enslaved. ➠ The five large Indigenous American nations (Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole) adopted slave codes, created slave patrols, and assisted in the recapture of enslaved Black people who fled for freedom. ➠ The embrace of slavery by the five large Indigenous American nations hardened racial categories, making it difficult for mixed-race Black-Indigenous people to be recognized as members of Indigenous communities. 2.17 Vocabulary Seminoles Indigenous slave codes and patrols enslaved by Indigenous people Required Sources to Recall: - Primary Source: Arkansas Petition for Freedmen’s Rights, 1869 - Primary Source: Diary entry recounting the capture of 41 Black Seminoles by Gen. Thomas Sidney Jesup, 1836 Topic 2.18 Debates About Emigration, Colonization, and Belonging in America 🔑 Key Question: How did 19th-century emigrationists aim to achieve the goal of Black freedom and self-determination? ➠ African American supporters of emigration and colonization observed the spread of abolition in Latin America and the Caribbean from 1820 to 1860 and advocated building new communities outside the United States. The continuation of slavery and racial discrimination against free Black people in the U.S. raised doubts about peacefully achieving racial equality in the states. ➠ The 19th-century movement for African American emigration among Black abolitionists was distinct from the American Colonization Society, a White-led organization that drove earlier attempts to colonize parts of  EMPOWERING HISTORIES Africa in order to relocate free Black people from the U.S. Through emigration, African Americans envisioned a new homeland beyond the reach of racism and slavery. ➠ Emigrationists embraced Black nationalism, which was ushered in by abolitionists, like Paul Cuffee and Martin R. Delany. Black nationalism promoted Black unity, self- determination, pride, and self-sufficiency. - Martin Delany was one of the first African Americans to publish a novel, and as a major in the Union Army, he became the first Black field officer in the U.S. Army. - Paul Cuffee was the first person to take African Americans from the U.S. to Africa. In 1815, he took 39 African Americans to the British Black settlement of Freetown in Sierra Leone, where some of the Black Loyalists during the Revolutionary War were taken by the British after their defeat. ➠ Emigrationists promoted moving away from the U.S. as the best strategy for African Americans to prosper freely, and evaluated locations in Central and South America, the West Indies, and West Africa. Due to their large populations of people of color, shared histories, and a promising climate, Central and South America were considered the most favorable areas for emigration. 🔑 Key Question #2: How did transatlantic abolitionism influence anti-emigrationists’ political views about the potential for African Americans belonging in American society? ➠ Anti-emigrationists saw abolition as a means to achieve the liberation, representation, and full integration of African Americans in American society. They viewed slavery and racial discrimination as inconsistent with America’s founding charters and believed abolition and racial equality would reflect the nation’s ideals. They saw themselves as having “birthright citizenship.” - Today, “birthright citizenship” is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment which was ratified just a couple of years after the end of the Civil War. It means that everyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen. In the early and mid 19th century, it was a radical idea to argue that Black Americans had or ought to have “birthright citizenship.” ➠ Due to the Fugitive Slave Acts, Frederick Douglass and other formerly enslaved abolitionists were not protected from recapture, even in the North. Many found refuge in England and Ireland and raised awareness for U.S. abolition from abroad. ➠ Who was Frederick Douglass? Douglass was born into slavery in February 1818 on a Maryland labor camp (“plantation”). He self-liberated (escaped to freedom) in 1838. He settled in Massachusetts and became a leading abolitionist. Douglass wrote an autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, (1845). The book is one of the most significant pieces of American literature. It vividly recounts his life in bondage and his escape. Douglass was a powerful speaker and writer and played a crucial role in the years leading up to the Civil War. His passionate and effective voice called for an end to slavery and for equal rights for African Americans. During the Civil War, he met with Lincoln and helped to change his mind about emancipation and allowing Black men to fight in the war. ➠ Some anti-emigrationists used moral suasion, rather than radical resistance, to change the status of African Americans in American society. - moral suasion: a persuasive technique that uses logic and moral arguments (and even implicit threats) to influence people to behave in a certain way. - Example: Frederick Douglass’s ideas about how American slavery should end changed throughout the 19th century; before the Civil War started, he went from advocating nonviolent resistance to accepting violence as a likely necessity for the overthrow of slavery. ➠ In the wake of emancipation in the British West Indies (1831-34) and the Dred Scott decision (1857), 19th-century integrationists highlighted the paradox of celebrating nearly a century of American independence while excluding millions from citizenship because of their race.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES 2.18 Vocabulary People African American emigrationists Preference for Latin & South America for Paul Cuffee Abolition in Latin America and the Black emigrationists Martin R. Delany Caribbean from 1820 to 1860 Anti-emigrationists Frederick Douglass Black nationalism refuge in England and Ireland moral suasion Required Sources to Recall (2.18): - Primary Source: “The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered” by Martin R. Delany, 1852 - Primary Source: “Emigration to Mexico” by “A Colored Female of Philadelphia,” The Liberator, 1832, from Call and Response - Primary Source: “West India Emancipation” by Frederick Douglass, 1857 - Primary Source: “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” (read by his descendants) Source Notes: In the West India emancipation speech (1857), Frederick Douglass spoke the famous line, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” He encouraged his audience to hold fast to the hope for abolition and racial harmony and to stay committed to struggle, either by words or actions. Topic 2.19 Black Political Thought: Radical Resistance 🔑 Key Question: How did 19th-century Black activists use radical resistance strategies to demand change? ➠ Advocates of radical resistance embraced overthrowing slavery through direct action, including revolts and, if necessary, violence to address the daily urgency of living and dying under slavery. ➠ Advocates of radical resistance leveraged publications that detailed the horrors of slavery to encourage enslaved African Americans to use any tactic, including violence, to achieve their freedom. Anti-slavery pamphlets were smuggled into the South as a radical resistance tactic. ➠ Denmark Vesey planned a large slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1822. He aimed to secure freedom and equality for enslaved people. One of the enslaved members of the plot became afraid and told his enslaver. Vesey was arrested, along with many of his co-conspirators. After a trial, he and 35 others were found guilty and subsequently executed by hanging on July 2, 1822. His execution served as a stark example of the harsh consequences for those who attempted to resist slavery in the United States during that time. The news led to increased repression of enslaved people, stricter laws, and reinforced racial divisions, contributing to the tensions that eventually culminated in the American Civil War. ➠ David Walker, a free Black abolitionist from Boston, addressed his “Appeal” to the larger African diaspora and rejected the idea of emigration to Africa. He wrote to counter Thomas Jefferson’s arguments in “Notes on the State of Virginia” which had claimed that African Americans were inferior by nature, benefitted from slavery, were incapable of self-government, and, if freed, should emigrate. ➠ Nat Turner Rebellion: Nat Turner was born into slavery in Virginia. He claimed to have visions from God and that he was the chosen one to end slavery. In 1831, he and his followers were able to kill 55 white Virginians before their rebellion was crushed and they were executed. It was the largest and most successful (thought not ultimately successful) slave rebellion in the history of the United States. However, the reaction from Virginia was severe. Freeing an enslaved person became illegal. It became a crime to teach an enslaved person to read. Former marriages between enslaved people were no longer legally recognized. The institution of slavery was getting worse.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES ➠ Henry Highland Garnet’s family escaped slavery in Maryland when he was a child. He grew up in New York City where he attended Africa Free School which was founded by Alexander Hamilton. He became a minister and became a leading advocate that abolitionists needed to move beyond moral pleas and to take direct political action to end slavery. - The abolitionist movement gained steam in the 1840s, but William Loyd Garrison’s Liberator argued for moral suasion. - Garnet's 1843 speech at the National Negro Convention in Buffalo was considred too radical by many abolitionists. After fierce debate, the convention voted not to endorse the speech. Overall, the convention was a platform for discussing strategies for combating slavery and racial injustice. - Eventually, Frederick Douglass’ views moved more in line with Garnet. - Unlike David Walker, Garnet eventually became an advocate for emigration. He ended his life in the West African nation of Liberia where he was appointed the official U.S. minister. 2.19 Vocabulary People Radical Resistance Smuggling of anti-slavery pamphlets in to the South Denmark Vesey Nat Turner’s Rebellion David Walker Henry Highland Garnet Nat Turner Required Sources to Recall: - Primary Source: “Appeal” by David Walker, 1830 - Primary Source: “An Address to the Slaves of the United States” by Henry Highland Garnet, 1843 Topic 2.20 Race to the Promised Land: Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad Note: The Underground Railroad was large and its effects were huge! Early portrayals suggesting its influence was limited were not accurate. Surviving visual and textual sources about a covert process must be read critically against the factors that mediate them. Enslaved people’s determination to free themselves fueled the success of the Underground Railroad, as they took the first step toward freedom. 🔑 Key Question: What was the role and scale of the Underground Railroad in providing freedom-seeking routes? ➠ The term Underground Railroad refers to a covert network of Black and White abolitionists who provided transportation, shelter, and other resources to help enslaved people fleeing the South resettle in free territories in the U.S. North, Canada, and Mexico in the 19th century. ➠ An estimated 30,000 African Americans reached freedom through the Underground Railroad in this period. ➠ Due to the high number of African Americans who fled enslavement, Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, authorizing local governments to legally kidnap and return escaped refugees to their enslavers. - The Constitution granted the right for “slave states” to demand that “free states” return “their property” in what is known as the Fugitive Slave Clause. However, there was no institution in place to make this  EMPOWERING HISTORIES happen. For example, Pennsylvania was the first state to abolish slavery. It was an emotional issue and there was no way that the state of Pennsylvania was going to arrest people and send them back south. - As the abolitionist cause gained steam and the Underground Railroad grew, Southern States became more infuriated and demanded the Federal Government do something to “uphold the Constitution.” - The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act came as a part of a compromise. The South agreed to allow California into the Union as a “free state” if the North agreed to a new Fugitive Slave Act. - Unlike the Act of 1853, the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1850 had enforcement measures in place. - The 1850 Act gave the right to the Federal government to create commissioners who could create warrants for the arrests of self liberated people (known at the time as “runaway slaves”). - The Federal commissioners had the right to force any citizen in a northern state to help in the capture of self liberated people (“runaway slaves”). - This infuriated abolitionists and turned many “moderate” Northerns into abolitionists. - The 1850 Act also meant the “free states” were no longer safe. The Underground Railroad had to be extended all the way to Canada. Crossing the Ohio River was no longer enough as “slave catchers” proweld the Midwest. The Underground Railroad now needed stops throughout places like New York, Ohio, and Michigan. 🔑 Key Question #2: What was the broader context of the abolitionist movement in which the Underground Railroad operated? ➠ The abolitionist movement in the United States between 1830 and 1870 advocated for the end of slavery. The movement was led by Black activists and White supporters, and was championed and spread by a number of existing churches as well as organizations created solely for this cause. ➠ Abolitionists effectively utilized speeches and publications to galvanize public sentiment and to engage in heated debates and confrontations with those who upheld slavery. 🔑 Key Question #3: What was the significance of Harriet Tubman’s contributions to abolitionism and African Americans’ pursuit of freedom? ➠ Harriet Tubman is one of the most well-known conductors of the Underground Railroad. She was born as Araminta Ross. She chose "Harriet" to honor her mother. Tubman was the last name of the free Black man she met and married after self liberating. After fleeing enslavement, Tubman returned to the South at least 19 times, leading about 80 enslaved African Americans to freedom. She sang spirituals to alert enslaved people of plans to leave. Famously, Tubman carried a gun which ensured freedom seekers did not get scared and attempt to return to slavery, using it to enforce discipline and safety. ➠ Tubman leveraged her vast geographic knowledge and social network to serve as a spy and nurse for the Union army during the Civil War. ➠ Combahee River Raid: Tubman became the 1st American woman to lead a major military operation. - During the Civil War in 1864, Tubman played a crucial role as a scout and guide for Union forces. Her expertise in navigating the terrain and her knowledge of the local area helped lead the Combahee River Raid which resulted in the liberation of approximately 150 enslaved people from Confederate-controlled labor camps (plantations) in Texas. 2.20 Vocabulary People Underground Railroad Black and White supporters of the Harriet Tubman Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 & 1850 abolitionist movement Combahee River Raid Required Sources to Recall: - Primary Source: Excerpt from Harriet, the Moses of Her People by Sarah H. Bradford, 1886 - Primary Source: Harriet Tubman’s reflection in The Refugee by Benjamin Drew, 1856 Source Notes: “Harriet, Moses of Her People” is based on interviews with Harriet Tubman; however, the author took creative license to describe Tubman’s speech using dialect. “The Refugee” is the only known text to capture Tubman’s speech directly.  EMPOWERING HISTORIES Topic 2.21 Legacies of Resistance in African American Art and Photography 🔑 Key Question: What is the the significance of visual depictions of African American leaders in photography and art during and after the era of slavery. ➠ In the 19th century, African American leaders embraced photography, a new technology, to counter stereotypes about Black people by portraying themselves as citizens worthy of dignity, respect, and equal rights. ➠ Sojourner Truth (see 2.14 for a mini bio) sold her carte-de-visites (a small photograph) to raise money for the abolitionist cause as well as activities such as speaking tours and recruiting Black soldiers to the Union army. Her photos showcased the centrality of Black women’s leadership in the fight for freedom. ➠ Frederick Douglass (see 2.18 for a mini bio) was the most photographed man of the 19th century. Photos of formerly enslaved African Americans like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were especially significant, as they demonstrated Black achievement and potential through freedom. ➠ Many contemporary African American artists draw from Black aesthetic t