BLACK PEOPLE IN COLONIAL NORTH AMERICA, 1526–1763



Unit 2 – Early America: Colonization and Settlement

CHAPTER 3: BLACK PEOPLE IN COLONIAL NORTH AMERICA, 1526–1763

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Early settlers in North America included a wide variety of ethnic groups, including Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans. The earliest Africans probably arrived in 1526 with Spanish explorers. In North America, the British, not the Spanish, came to dominate the area and their policies governed relationships between blacks and whites. Until the late 1600s, the British treated people of African descent much like their indentured servants. Blacks in this early period could obtain their freedom, own property, and had legal rights. By the mid 1600s, however, the British colonies had begun to harden the legal status of blacks, often making their term of service for life. Legal changes by 1700 reduced slaves to chattel, or personal property. They lost almost all of their basic social and legal rights as humans. Different regions of the country saw many distinctions in the practice of slavery however. Compared to slaves in the Chesapeake, for example, slaves in the Carolinas outnumbered whites and faced the harshest legal codes. However, because their white masters were frequently absent, Carolina slaves also worked with a great deal of independence from white authority.

Despite many of the horrors and injustices of life under slavery, African Americans maintained and preserved many aspects of their African culture, including music, folklore, building styles, and clothing. Even when they converted to Christianity during the Great Awakening, African Americans developed separate churches to maintain a distinctive African element to their religion. In addition to maintaining their own African culture, slaves heavily influenced white life, from speaking mannerisms to building styles to food. Resistance and rebellion played a significant part in the day-to-day lives of many slaves. Although armed uprisings like the Stono Rebellion, the South Carolina Revolt, and the New York City Rebellion remained rare, slaves demonstrated their objections to their situation by lying, stealing, destroying crops, breaking things, poisoning whites, and escaping.

Just as slavery varied across the South, it also varied in the North in British North America; it also varied by the colonial power dominating different areas. More slaves in the North were isolated from other blacks and more worked in household jobs or skilled trades. In addition, the harsh form of chattel slavery developed in British North America remained different from other European nations.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES – Be able to answer these essential questions in detail

1. How did Black servitude develop in Colonial North America?

2. What were the reasons for the development of a system of chattel slavery?

3. What were the characteristics of slavery in the Northern colonies, Chesapeake region, and the Low Country?

4. What types of resistance and rebellion existed in Colonial America?

VOCABULARY

acculturation

assimilation

indentured servitude

Anthony Johnson

Bacon’s Rebellion

Slave codes

Low Country

task system

mulattoes

miscegenation

creolization

outliers

maroons

Great Awakening

Lucy Terry Prince

resistance

CHAPTER 4: AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE, 1763-1783

CHAPTER SUMMARY

After their success in the French and Indian War, England began taxing the colonies more stringently and passing other measures to help pay for the expensive war and administration of the new territories. This initiated a series of events, which led to the American Revolution. Enlightenment principles fed the Declaration of Independence and dramatically influenced African American’s perceptions of themselves and the condition of slavery. As the ideas of natural rights and freedom spread through the African-American community, slaves reacted strongly. In the South, huge numbers escaped, while in the North, slaves in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut used the legal system to petition for freedom, sometimes successfully. African Americans served on both sides, Loyalist and Patriot, in the American Revolution, generally choosing the side that seemed to offer the greatest opportunities for freedom. In the South, this usually meant the British, especially once the British leader Lord Dunmore began offering freedom to slaves for military service. As the personnel situation began getting more desperate, Patriot troops also allowed black enlistment. No matter the side they chose, blacks fought in many battles in various capacities, including as privateers, spies and soldiers.

The American Revolution also fostered a second revolution that of emancipation for slaves in the North. Fueled partially by Christian ideals, Quakers initiated an anti-slavery movement that gradually abolished slavery across the North. African Americans made qualified gains during the aftermath of the American Revolution. Certainly, the free population swelled, but African Americans even in the North continued to face significant economic difficulties in a nation espousing the belief that “all men are created equal.”

LEARNING OBJECTIVES – Be able to answer these essential questions in detail

1. What was the crisis for the British Empire, especially concerning the American colonies?

2. What did the Declaration of Independence mean for African Americans?

3. How did the American Revolution influence African Americans?

4. What were the roles and motivations of blacks serving on the Patriot and the Loyalist side in the American Revolution.

5. How did slavery change in the Northern colonies/states, Chesapeake/Mid-Atlantic region, and in the deep South as a result of the American Revolution?

Review the question sheet from this week – the information on that sheet is the key information from this chapter!

VOCABULARY

French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War

Patriots

Crispus Attucks

Declaration of Independence

Enlightenment/Age of Reason

Phillis Wheatley

Benjamin Banneker

Loyalists

Lord Dunmore

Quakers/Society of Friend

CHAPTER 5: AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEW NATION, 1783–1820

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Although the American Revolution spread a language of equality, the period after America won independence failed to live up to that ideal, especially for blacks. Although forces for slavery ultimately dominated, impetus for freedom gained some ground. Taking the revolutionary rhetoric to heart, New England and the mid-Atlantic states began the process of abolishing slavery, generally gradually. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established a precedent for forbidding slavery in the new territories. In the South, a free black class also began to emerge, although in smaller numbers, as manumission and self-purchase laws became more liberal. Forces for slavery, including the weight of the U.S. Constitution, and increased racism, proved stronger than each of these anti-slavery forces. Cotton expanded as a cash crop across the South, made easier to produce with the cotton gin, and demanded much cheap labor.

After the Revolution, alongside existing racism, free black communities developed separate institutions to counter discrimination and preserve African heritage. These institutions included mutual aid societies, black churches, and schools. In aiding black people in a racist society, black leaders, dominated by clergy and businessmen, held different views and pursued different tactics. Some blacks advocated passivity, others protested, and others pushed for migration to Africa. Very few slaves took resistance a step further, using violent resistance to try to rid America of slavery. This violence, although squashed by whites, provoked significant fear among Southerners and led to crackdowns on slaves. The violence also hindered black efforts during the War of 1812, and affected life as the country began to divide sectionally over the Missouri Compromise in 1820.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES – Be able to answer these essential questions in detail

1. How was revolutionary rhetoric used to abolish slavery?

2. What strong forces continued to exist and keep people enslaved, even as slavery was being abolished in parts of the United States?

3. What role did free black communities have in the first two decades of the United States?

4. What tactics and methods were used to deal with slavery once the United States became independent?

Review the Chapter 5 packet from Thursday. Not all of this chapter is being tested – only the information discussed in class.

VOCABULARY Slavery

manumission

Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

Three-Fifths Clause

Eli Whitney/cotton gin

mutual aid societies

F

Elizabeth Freeman

Anthony Benezet

Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of ree African Society

Richard Allen

Absalom Jones

American Colonization Society (Liberia)

Gabriel [Prosser]

Denmark Vesey

Nat Turner

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