African Americans

1
African Americans
2
Beginnings of slavery

• 1441 was the start of the European slave trade in
  Africa. Portuguese captains Antao Concalves and
  Nuno Tristao capture 12 Africans in Mauritania
  and take them to Portugal.
• De Freitas captures 225 Africans and enslaves
  them, afterwards they send them to Europe this
  was the first large group of slaves sent to
  Europe.
• In 1452 Juan de Cordoba from Seville becomes the
  first merchant that is identified to send African
  slaves to the New World. In 1509 Columbuss son
  Diego Colon becomes governor of new Spanish
  empire in Caribbean and complains that the
  Natives dont work hard enough. This was a factor
  initiating the thought of switching to Africans
  as a alternative labor source.
• 22 January 1510- start of systematic
  transportation of Africans to the new world. King
  Ferdinand authorized a shipment of 50 slaves to
  be sent to Santo Domingo. In 1522 there was a
  major slave rebellion on Hispaniola and after
  this rebellion slave resistance became common and
  widespread.

3
Slavery in the New World

• 1528 a slave called Esteban becomes first slave
  to step foot on what is now united states soil.
• Juan de la Barrera, a Seville merchant, begins
  transporting slaves directly from Africa to the
  new world instead of going to Europe first.
• The Spanish created a system that the small
  minority of settlers controlled the lives and
  labors of millions of Indians and Africans.
• In this society there was mixed peoples involving
  colonists, Natives, and Africans.
• Around 125,000 Africans were forced to settle on
  the Spanish plantations on the Caribbean. Since
  European women only counted for 10 of
  immigrants. Most male colonists married with
  African women.
• Mulatto was the term to describe the mix between
  Europeans and Africans. The mulattos became a
  majority in the population.
• The island of Barbados was abundant in the
  production and sale of sugar but had become
  overpopulated with English settlers and Africans.
• So in order to combat the overpopulation problem
  the majority of the Barbadians both masters and
  slaves moved to South Carolina. This diversified
  the population giving South Carolina around 6,000
  nonnative and 2500 of these peoples were enslaved
  Africans.

4
The Middle Passage

• The Royal African Company was a slave trading
  monopoly based in London and was chartered in
  1672. In 1698 England opened the trade to
  independent merchants. Soon hundreds of ships
  started competing with London which sky rocketed
  the number of slaves in North America.
• Most Africans were enslaved by other Africans in
  wars
• Demand for slaves increased significantly in
  response to the plantation system because
  plantations required a lot of labor.
• Before 1750 most slaves were sailed to
  Massachusetts but after 1750 most slaves were
  sailed to Rhode Island.
• On the West African coast when slaves were
  waiting to be shipped off they waited in dark
  dungeons or open pens. Also to lessen the
  possibility of collective resistance the slavers
  would split up families. The Africans selected
  for transport were branded with the mark of their
  buyer.
• A French trader wrote that many prisoners were,
  positively prepossessed with the opinion that we
  transport them into our country in order to kill
  and eat them.

5
The Middle Passage Continued

• The middle passage was a passage through the
  middle part of a triangle from England to Africa,
  Africa to America, and America to England. There
  were two methods of shipping slaves, tight
  packing and loose packing. Loose packers believed
  that if you gave slaves more room and better
  conditions to live in there would be a lower
  fatality rate and profits would increase in turn.
  Tight packers argued that it was better to pack
  as many slaves in as possible because they may
  have more deaths but the profit for the shipment
  would be higher. Tight packing was the more
  popular method because the demand for slaves was
  so high and people needed as many slaves as
  possible.
• Conditions in the slave ship were appalling the
  sailors were supposed to clean the hull everyday
  but the smell was so putrid that they wouldnt do
  it so the slaves would wind up lying in their own
  body wastes. Because of these horrible conditions
  many diseases were spread around among the
  slaves. Historians estimate that in the middle
  passage 1 in every 6 slaves died.
• In 1755 Olaudah Equiano is born he was a slave
  until he bought his freedom and wrote a book
  called, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of
  Olaudah Equiano. The novel is one of the few
  African accounts of enslavement and he describes
  the cruelty slaves faced.

6
The Middle Passage Continued

• Slaves still managed to offer plenty of
  resistance. They were most dangerous when the
  slave ships were anchored off the coast of Africa
  because they could still see the coast so they
  would be more encouraged to rise up against the
  sailors or jump overboard. As a precaution the
  crew watched the slaves intently and would also
  put netting around the ships to catch the slaves
  from jumping into the water. A historian found
  reference to 55 slave revolt on British and
  American ships from 1699 to 1845. Once the ships
  reached the open sea slaves became desperate
  because they felt as if they had no chance of
  returning to their country. Some slaves jumped
  overboard and would drown.
• When the slaves reached land their shackles were
  taking off except for the most rebellious slaves.
  The slavers would try to make the slaves look
  better by shoving clumps of hemp fiber up the
  slaves rectum to hide the bloody discharge. Most
  slaves were bought by an auction or by a
  scramble. The scramble was when the Africans were
  paid for in advance and were put into a corral
  were at the signal the buyers would rush in and
  take their pick.

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Anti-Slavery movements

• Fernaode Oliveira denounces the slave trade as
  evil trade and his book inspires abolitionists
  in later years.
• 1571- The parliament of Bordeaux sets all slaves,
  blacks and moors, free and declaring slavery
  illegal In France.
• March 4 1681- The colony of Pennsylvania was
  founded which would later become a center of
  antislavery thought.
• 1688- Aphra Behn publishes Oroonoko also known
  as the Royal Slave which discusses the rights and
  wrongs of slavery.
• February 18 1688- The German Mennonite
  Resolution against slavery took place this was
  the first formal protest against slavery in a
  British American colony.
• Slavery in the north was not as important as in
  the south because the north did not have gigantic
  plantations which required massive amounts of
  labor at most there were some small farms.
• One major area were slavery was still
  concentrated was in Newport, Rhode Island. This
  was due to the large slave gangs used in cattle
  and dairy operations in the Narragansett country,
  some of which were as large as Virginia
  plantations.

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Anti-Slavery Movements continued

• The Quakers voiced the first antislavery
  sentiment in the colonies. Consideration on the
  keeping of negroes written in 1754 by John
  Woolman pointed out the Bibles declaration that
  all people were of one blood and he urged his
  readers to imagine themselves in the place of the
  African people.
• William Wilberforce delivers the first major
  abolitionist speech before the house of commons
  on may 12, 1789.

9
Africans during the revolution

• Atleast 5000 African Americans served in the
  continental army
• The war in the south began with a slave uprising.
  In 1775, Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of
  Virginia, issued a proclamation calling on slaves
  to desert their masters and take up arms with the
  British. Over 800 slaves responded to his call.
  When patriot forces efficiently routed Dunmores
  army in July 1776, they fought a large number of
  African American troops who wore sashes that
  said, Liberty to slaves. Many of these black
  soldiers succumbed to smallpox, but atleast 300
  soldiers sailed with Dunmore when he left to
  England.
• General Clintons promise of liberty to those who
  fought in the army rallied thousands of slaves.
• Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina began
  recruiting free persons of color and even slaves.
  In the south some slaves won their freedom
  through military service but in the lower south,
  were the numerical superiority of slaves bred
  fears of rebellion among white people, there was
  no similar movement

10
Post war for African Americans

• For Africans there was little celebration towards
  the American victory in the revolution because it
  only perpetuated slavery. Thousands of black
  fighters departed with the British and some moved
  to the West Indies, Canada, and even Africa.
  South Carolina said to have lost around 30,000 to
  25,000 slaves due to the war.
• Slavery was first abolished in the constitution
  of Vermont in 1777, and in Massachusetts and New
  Hampshire in 1780 and 1784. Respectively
  Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island
  adopted emancipation by 1786. Every Northern
  state except Delaware provided immediate or
  gradual emancipation even though as late as 1810
  30,000 African Americans remained enslaved in the
  north.
• In the upper south revolutionary idealism,
  Christian egalitarianism in Methodist and
  Baptists, and a shift from tobacco farming
  weakened the commitment of many planters to the
  slave system. There was an increase in granting
  freedom to slaves by their individual masters.
  There was also a small movement in freeing slaves
  in their owners will.

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Post war continued

• George Washington not only freed several hundred
  of his slaves on his death but also developed an
  elaborate plan for apprenticeship and tenancy for
  the able-bodied, lodging and pensions for the
  aged. Planters in the lower south were too
  heavily dependant on slavery and ignored the
  growing calls to end slavery. Between 1776 and
  1786 all states except South Carolina and Georgia
  heavily taxed the international slave trade.
• From a few thousand in 1750 the free African
  American population grew to more than 200,000 by
  the end of the century. The African community now
  had sufficient strength to establish schools,
  churches, and other institutions of its own.
  Initially this development was opposed and people
  would be whipped for such ideas. But by the
  1790s the Williamsburg African Church had more
  than 500 members, and the association reluctantly
  recognized it. The incorporation of the term
  African in the names of churches, schools, and
  mutual benefit societies reflected the pride that
  African Americans now took in their heritage.

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Influential African American people

• Benjamin Banneker, born free in Maryland, where
  he received an education, was one of the most
  accomplished mathematicians and astronomers of
  late eighteenth century America. Other famous
  African American writers would be Jupiter Hammon
  who wrote poems and essays, one of his most
  important writing was, Address to the Negroes of
  the State of New York published in 1787. The
  most famous however was Phillis Wheatley, who
  came to public attention when her poems poems on
  various subjects, Religious and Moral appeared
  in London in 1773. her poems described her piety
  and her concern for her people

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Famous people to know

• Antao Goncalves-one of the captains of the
  Portuguese ship which captured 12
  Africans and shipped them back to Europe which
  started the slave trade.
• Fernaode Oliveira- a man who denounced the slave
  trade as a evil trade and his writing inspired
  abolitionists in later years.
• Olaudah Equiano- famous slave narrative writer
  who wrote one of the only Accounts of the
  cruelty slaves faced.
• John Woolman- voiced the first antislavery speech
  in the colonies
• Phillis Wheatley- the most famous African
  American writer
• William Wilberforce-he delivered the first major
  abolitionist speech before the House of Commons

14
Important terms to know

• Mulatto- name given to people who are mixed
  between European and African
• Caravel- Portuguese ship which was at the time
  period it was made the best ship ever seen and
  was also used for transporting African slaves.
• Mauritania- a country in Africa were the first
  slaves were taken by Europeans back to Europe.
• Abolitionist- a person who wanted to end slavery
• Barbadians- were natives to Barbados
• Barracoons- the pens that the Africans were kept
  in before they were shipped out of Africa.
• Maroons- runaway slaves
• Seminoles- mixture of Africans and Creek Indian
  people
• Middle passage- main passage used in the slave
  trade for the transportation of slaves.
• The Scramble- method of buying slaves were the
  slaves are prepaid and the Buyers rush in at a
  signal and pick their slaves.

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More important terms

• Egalitarianism-belief in human equality
• Emancipation-freeing someone from control of
  another
• Manumissions-grants of freedom to slaves by
  individual masters
• Abolitionist- someone who wants to get rid of
  slavery
• Liberty- the quality or state of being free

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multiple choice questions

• 1. What was the term used to describe African and
  European hybrids?
• a.) mestizos
• b.) mulattos
• c.) black
• d.) French
• 2. What American colony would become a major
  abolitionist supporter?
• a.) North Carolina
• b.) New England
• c.) Pennsylvania
• d.) South Carolina
• 3.) The first significant slave rebellion took
  place on the island of..?
• a.) Cuba
• b.) Barbados
• c.) Hispaniola
• d.) Puerto Rico
• 4.) What was the year the African slave trade
  started?

17
MC continued

• 5.) What group of people voiced the first
  antislavery sentiment in the colonies?
• a.) puritans
• b.) Quakers
• c.) Jews
• d.) Catholics
• 6.) At what point in the slave voyage were the
  slaves most dangerous?
• a.) when in the open sea
• b.) when exiting the ship
• c.) when boarding the ship
• d.) when anchored off the coast
• 7.) Conditions in the hull for slaves were
  moderately nice and appealing.
• a.) true
• b.) false
• 8.) Where in the north was slavery most
  concentrated?
• a.) New York
• b.) New England

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MC Continued

• 9. What year was the colony of Pennsylvania
  found?
• a.) 1680
• b.)1681
• c.) 1640
• d.)1670
• 10. Who wrote the famous story oroonoko?
• a.) John Locke
• b.) fernaode Oliveira
• c.) Aphra Behn
• d.) Shakespeare
• 11.) What did Africa contribute to the
  Intercontinental Exchange?
• a.) gold, silver
• b.) tobacco, cotton
• c.) enslaved Africans
• d.) horses, cows, pigs
• 12.) What was the German Mennonite Resolution?

19
MC continued

• 13.) Which European country made slavery illegal
  very early on?
• a.) England
• b.) Germany
• c.) France
• d.) Spain
• 14.) Which European country started the slave
  trade?
• a.) Spain
• b.) Portugal
• c.) Italy
• d.) England

20
MC continued

• 15. What term was given to runaway slaves?
• a.) mulattos
• b.) Mestizos
• c.) Maroons
• d.) Deserters
• 16.) The Middle Passage is a route used for
  transporting slaves from Africa.
• a.) true
• b.) false
• 17.) What was the most popular way that slavers
  transported their slaves?
• a.) tight packing
• b.) loose packing
• 18.) Famous African author who wrote a narrative
  about his life in slavery.
• a.) Aphra Behn
• b.) Olaudah Equiano
• c.) Ignatius sancho
• d.) Shakespeare

21
MC continued

• 19.) What percent of the colonial population to
  Africans count for after 1750?
• a.) 11
• b.) 40
• c.) 20
• d.) 15
• 20.) Most Africans were enslaved by
• a.) the Spanish
• b.) the French
• c.) other Africans
• d.) the Portuguese
• 21.) About how many slaves fought in the
  continental army?
• a.) 20,000
• b.) 5,000
• c.) 10,000
• d.) 1,000
• 22.) What British general promised freedom to
  slaves who fought for him?

22
MC Continued

• 23.) Delaware abolished its slavery along with
  all the other northern states.
• a.) true
• b.) false
• 24.) Famous African author who wrote about her
  piety along with her concern for her
  people.
• a.) Aphra Behn
• b.) Benjamin Banneker
• c.) Jupiter Hammon
• d.) Phillis Wheatley
• 25.) What was the first colony to abolish
  slavery?
• a.) Vermont
• b.) Massachusetts
• c.) New Hampshire
• d.) South Carolina
• 26.) In what year did Massachusetts abolish
  slavery?
• a.) 1780
• b.) 1783

23
MC continued

• 27.) South Carolina lost a maximum 10,000 slaves
  because of the war.
• a.) true
• b.) false
• 28.) About how many Africans remained enslaved in
  the north after most states abolished
• Slavery?
• a.) 5,000
• b.) 30,000
• c.) 10,000
• d.) 50,000
• 29.) Which two states did not heavily tax the
  international slave trade?
• a.) South Carolina
• b.) Georgia
• c.) both a and b are correct
• d.) none of the answers are correct
• 30.) There were about 200,000 free African
  Americans at the end of the 18th century
• a.) true

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References

• Revised third edition
• Out of many a History of the American People
• By John Mack Faragher, Mari Jo Buhle, Daniel
  Citrom, Susan H. Armitage.
• http//www.brycchancarey.com/slavery/index.htm
• By Brycchan Carey