AfroAm Midterm

tlantic Creoles (Juan Garrido, Esteban, Dom Miguel de Castro)

Mixed people that emerged in early colonial rule. They served as intermediaries, interpreters, diplomats, and explorers.

Prince Henry (Portugal, 1415–1460

Led capture of Ceuta in North Africa and colonized slave-run sugar plantations.

Nzinga a Nkuwu (Mani Kongo / King João)

Ruler of Kongo that converted to Christianity. This wasn’t an act of submission, but diplomacy between equal parties for mutual gain.

Francis Payne (1637–1673 Chesapeake)

Black man that ran tobacco production for widowed owner, took some of the profits, bought freedom, won against a white guy in court, bought land, and married a white person.

Jemmy & Fort Mose (1739 Stono Rebellion)

Enslaved man from Angola that led the Stono Rebellion with 20 other men. They killed ~20 white guys but the militia caught them and put their heads on pikes. Led to 1740 SC slave code.

Onesimus (1721–1722 Boston Smallpox Epidemic)

Introduced african medical practice of inoculation to enslaver and saved many lives during smallpox

Cultural Syncretism

Blending two cultures to create smth new (happened in Carolina where large Black populations didn’t interact that much with white people)

Acculturation

Leaning into white culture (happened in the North where white people and black people worked close to each other)

Colonoware, Akan Slave Drum & Melrose "African House"

Material proof of african culture in the south.

1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic

10% of PA population died. White people had used black people as healthcare workers because of a false belief of immunity but black people died 50% more than whites.

Crispus Attucks (1770 Boston Massacre):

Black/Indigenous sailor who escaped slavery and led mob against British troops. Colonial elites thought he was a patriot that could be used to rally support from lower-class.

James Armistead Fayette

Enslaved Virginian that served as a double agent in the Revolutionary War against the British. He was given freedom because of his service.

Why did Spain and Portugal sail

(1) Blockade: Ottoman empire blocked access to spices in Asia and Gold in Mali
(2) Freudal Crisis: Europeans were leaving everything to their first-born son which had the other kids desperate for foreign land and wealth

(3) Rivalry:

Ghana (3rd-12th century BC)

Controlled trade routes through the Sahara Desert which increased their wealth and in turn their military; Muslim country that was captured in 1076 by Muslim traders

Mali (13th-15th century)

Commercial hub of Gao, Kangaba, and Jenne; Islamic learning center, Mansa Musa killed economies by giving out gold during his pilgrimages

Songhai (late 15th-16th century)

Control over Gao, Timbuktu, and Jenne; had a sophisticated government and was a trade economy

Smaller States

Oyo and Dahomey rose after slave trade began

Control of slave trade

Portugal (16th century) → Dutch/Holland (17th century) → England (late 17th-18th century)

Chesapeake (VA/MD)

Started as a death trap with most dying before even getting there. Ended up becoming a tobacco-based plantation economy and locked slaves into slavery forever.

Carolina (SC)

Brought people from West Africa's Senegambia/Windward Coast specifically because they know how to cultivate rice.

New York/New Jersey

Started with “half freedom: under the Dutch but then switched to British and harsher rules. Was major slave-holding colony of North.

Pennsylvania

Quakers debated morality of slaves and gave them a lot of freedom but wasn’t the best.

New England

MA became first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641. Focus on trade was higher than holding but slaves were seen as dependents.

1676 Bacon's Rebellion

Black and white servants united to burn Jamestown. Terrified elites passed the 1680/1682 VA Slave Codes to replace white servants with enslaved Africans and tie white lower-class upward mobility to Black subordination.

The Revolutionary War

At first, Black people weren’t allowed to serve as a part of the Army so the British exploited this by offering freedom to those that fought for the British. This led to a reversal of the rule.

Abolition of Slavery

Vermont is first state to abolish slavery in 1777. Virgina granted freedom to those that fought for the US in 1783.

Mansa Musa / Mali Empire (13th–15th Century)

Wealthy ruler of Mali in the 14th century. Has a famous pilgrimage to Mecca that lowered value of gold because he kept giving it away.

Elmina Castle (1481–1482)

Trade gold for enslaved people with African states and to defend Portugal's trade monopoly against rival European powers.

The Asiento (1518)

A monopoly contract granted by the King of Spain giving a specific country the exclusive right to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies in the Americas.

Royal African Company (1672)

English monarchy-backed company coordinated England's dominance in the transatlantic slave trade. Its creation led to a massive influx of enslaved Africans into North America between 1680 and 1750, helping replace white indentured servitude with racialized Black slavery.

Anthony Johnson & John Punch (1607–1660s Chesapeake)

Two figures who show the shift from non-racial servitude to racial slavery in Virginia. In the early 1600s, Anthony Johnson (a Black man) gained freedom, owned land, and sued in court; however, by the 1640s, John Punch (a Black servant who ran away with white servants) was sentenced to servitude for life while his white peers only got extended terms, marking the legal beginning of lifelong racial slavery.

"Half Freedom" (New York, pre-1664)

A system of slavery used by the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland (New York). It allowed enslaved Africans to live independently, marry, work for wages, and eventually gain full freedom—until the British took over in 1664 and replaced it with brutal, restrictive slave codes.

Stono Rebellion (1739) & Bacon's Rebellion (1676)

Major colonial uprisings. Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia united Black and white servants/slaves, pushing elites to harden racial divisions and rely solely on African slavery; the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina was a major armed slave uprising that terrified white planters and led to harsher surveillance and slave codes.

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation (1775)

A British proclamation during the American Revolution offering freedom to any enslaved person who escaped their rebel masters and fought for the British. It forced the Continental Army to reverse its ban on Black soldiers, leading 5,000 African Americans to fight for the U.S. and ~40,000 enslaved people to escape during the war.

Elizabeth Freeman & Quok Walker (1783)

Enslaved people in Massachusetts who filed "freedom suits" arguing that slavery violated the state's new revolutionary constitution. Their legal victories led the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to abolish slavery in the state in 1783.