AP African American studies - Unit 2

Ladinos/Atlantic creoles

Ladinos we're the First Africans in territory, that became the United States

They are from a generation know as Atlantic creoles(work as intermediaries before the predominance of chattel slavery)


Play the role of conquistadors (colonizing soldiers) enslaved laborers (mining, agriculture)free skilled workers and artisans

La Florida

Claimed by Spain consisting of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida
Resulted in the Black people participating in the slave trade(they explored with Spain and had social mobility)

social mobility

They were familiar with multiple languages, cultural norms, and commercial practices that granted them social mobility.

Juan Garrido

He was the first African who stepped foot into what's known as America

He was a free man because he served in the Spanish military, and helped conquer the indigenous populations

Estevanico

He was an enslaved African healer from Morocco, who was forced to explore, and translate. He eventually, was killed by indigenous people who were resisting the Spanish

translantic slave trade:350 years, 12.5 million people, 5% to US directly from Africa

The transatlantic slave trade lasted over 350 years from the early 1500s to the mid 1800s 12.5 billion enslaved Africans were forcefully transported to the Americas only 5% survived approximately 388,000 people came directly from Africa to the United States.

Charleston, SC

48% of Africans were brought to the United States from Africa, landed in Charleston, the center of the US slave trading

Top-five, enslaving nations

Portugal, Great Britain, France, Spain in the Netherlands were the top five in slaving nations involved in the translated to slave trade

Senegambia and Angola

The captains from Senegambia and Angola made up nearly half taken to the mainland. North America about a quarter from each region.

Multiple combinations of African based cultural practices

Because African ethnic groups were distributed through slavery. The interactions of various African ethnic groups produced multiple cultural practices, languages, beliefs, systems.

Unsanitary dungeons

This was the first step of the three-part journey they were marched from Interior states to the Atlantic coast, and brought to crowded unsanitary dungeons

Middle Passage

This was the second part of the journey they traveled across the Atlantic ocean, and it lasted three months they were separated from their communities, humiliated beaten tortured raped and suffered from diseases 15% perished

Monetary incentive

The slave trade increased motivation to gain money through violence to enslave neighboring societies. It caused wars and kingdoms used firearms that they got through trade with Europe.

Coastal states versus interior states

Coastal states got wealth from trade in goods and people(long-term they suffered instability and loss of kin, also culture and traditions)

Interior states became unstable under threat of capture in enslavement

war captives

To maintain wealth and power African leaders sold their soldiers and war captives(through war, they gained opposing ethnic groups)

Slave narratives

Slave narratives were published literature accounts showing hardships of slavery
The goals were to get to get slavery. Abolished show their humanity, support their rights and inclusion in America, and to show their history.

Slave ship diagrams

Diagram showing the system of captives, they wanted as many people on the ship to gain profit, it showed unsanitary and cramped conditions that led to diseases and disability, it didn't show the things they used to force slaves to stay like guns, nets, and iron instruments that force-fed them

90 day journey

How long it could take to get the slaves to the American ports

Repurposed the iconography

Black, visual, and performance artist have re-purposed the iconography of the slave ship to processed the trauma

They want to raise awareness and give honor to their ancestors
showing just how traumatic the 12.5 million Africans on the known 36,000 voyages had it over the 350 years.

Deracination

being uprooted from one's social/cultural/geographic environment

Commodification

being treated as an item or a thing for sale, rather than human

Hunger Strikes

Also enslavement individually by refusing to eat, and attempting to jump overboard In order to work collectively, enslaved captives had to figure out how to overcome linguistic differences to form revolts

La Amistad

Schooner enslaved took over

Supreme Court Case: United States v. The
Amistad

Enslaved Africans revoted on a slave ship(took over La Amistad), they eventually received their freedom, and sympathy towards abolition of slavery was received

Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cinqué)

Mende captive from Sierra leone who led group of enslaved africans

cotton gin

a machine that increased U.S. production, profits, and dependency on cotton as a cash crop.

Trail of Tears

forced removal of Indigenous communities by the U.S. government, it made lands available for large-scale cotton production.

1808: Banning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

After the banning the enslaved population grew through childbirth rather than new imports increasing the supply of enslaved agricultural laborers.

slave-cotton system

The lower South was dominated by the slave-cotton system, enslaved African Americans were valuable as there was demand for laborers.

cotton boom

many African Americans were forcibly relocated through the domestic slave trade from the upper South to the lower South.

"Second Middle Passage"

Marching hundreds of miles over one million African Americans were displaced over 2 1/2 times more people that had arrived from Africa during the original Middle Passage. This was the largest forced migration in American history.

skilled labor roles

Enslaved people of all ages and genders performed a wide variety of domestic, agricultural, and skilled labor in both urban and rural locales.

separating domestic and agricultural laborers

in some areas, there were distinct roles separating domestic and agricultural laborers, enslaved people could be reallocated to another type of labor according to the preference of their enslaver.

skills from Africa: rice cultivation

many enslaved relied on skills like rice cultivation

specialized trades

other than agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, and healers in the North and South.

bound to institutions

Many enslaved were bound to churches, factories, and colleges rather than to one owner

gang system

enslaved laborers worked in groups from sunup to sundown, under watch and discipline of a overseer, cultivating 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 with less supervision. The task system was used fto cultivate crops like rice and indigo, some enslaved people found the autonomy to maintain linguistic practices, such as the Gullah creole language that developed in the Carolina Low country.

N./S.: economic interdependence

Slavery fostered economic interdependence between the North and South. Cities that did not play a major role in the African slave trade benefited from the economy created by slavery.

foundational to Amer. Econ.

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.

racial wealth disparities

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.

U.S. Constitution

Article 1 and Article 4 of the U.S. Constitution refer to slavery but avoid using the terms slave or slavery. "Slave" was removed. These terms appear for the first time in the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery.

Slave codes

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.

deepened racial divides

Slave codes and other laws deepened racial divides in American society by reserving opportunities for upward mobility and protection from enslavement for White people based on their race and by denying opportunities to Black people on the same premise.

Anti-Black laws in free states

Some free states enacted laws to deny African Americans opportunities for advancement.
Some free states barred entry of free Black people into the state.
Some states enacted restrictions to keep free Black men from voting and testifying against Whites in court

S.C. 1740 Slave Code

classified all Black people and the Indigenous communities that did not submit to the colonial government as nonsubjects and presumed enslaved people.

prohibited enslaved people from gathering, drumming, running away, learning to read, or rebelling. It condemned to death any enslaved persons who tried to defend themselves from attack by a White person.

Stono Rebellion (1739)

slave code was updated in response to enslaved people's resistance during the Stono Rebellion in 1739

Dred Scott Case (1857)

Dred Scott's freedom suit resulted in the Supreme Court's decision that African Americans, enslaved and free, were not and could never become citizens of the U.S.

Partus sequitur ventrem

a 17th-century law that defined a child's legal status based on the status of its mother and held significant consequences for enslaved African Americans.

commodification of enslaved

Partus gave male enslavers the right to deny responsibility for the children they fathered with enslaved women and to commodify enslaved women's reproductive lives.

race is not real

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 with systems of enslavement.

phenotype

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 in order to perpetuate slavery over generations.

race classification

was determined on the basis of hypodescent(races or ethnic groups of people seen as superior and others as inferior) 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.

race classification and denial of multiethnic heritage

Although many African Americans had European or Indigenous ancestry, race classification prohibited them from embracing multiracial or multiethnic heritage.

What are blended faith traditions?

Combo of different religious beliefs and practices.

What are churches often considered as?

centers for community gathering, celebration, mourning, sharing information, and, in the North, political organizing

How did religion inspire resistance to slavery?

Religious teachings and beliefs motivated enslaved individuals to resist

What is the double meaning of spirituals' lyrics?

Spirituals contained hidden messages and codes for communication from the enslaved.

What is the significance of quilt making?

storytelling and memory keeping

What musical instruments were commonly used by enslaved individuals?

Banjo, drums, and gourd rattles.

What is call and response in music?(gospel and blues)

Enslaved people adapted Christian hymns they learned and combined rhythmic and performative elements from Africa with biblical themes, creating a distinctly American musical genre. This became the foundation of later American music genres, including gospel and the blues.

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

What is the significance of naming and self-identity?

Naming was a way for enslaved individuals to assert their identity and resist dehumanization.

What caused the decline in the African born population of African Americans?

After the U.S. banned international slave trading in 1808, the percentage of African- born people in the African American population declined

What was the American Colonization Society?

founded during the same era by White leaders seeking to exile the growing free Black population to Africa.

Why did Black people reject the term 'African'?

They didn't want to just be seen as that for they were American too and have lived and been kidnapped there for generations

What was the significance of asylum in Spanish Florida?

Enslaved sought refuge in Spanish Florida to escape slavery.

What was Fort Mose?

A free Black community in Spanish Florida.

What was the Stono Rebellion in 1739?

An uprising of enslaved Africans in South Carolina.

What was the South Carolina Slave Code of 1740?

A set of laws that tightened control over enslaved individuals in South Carolina.

Who was Francisco Menéndez?

A leader of the free Black community in Fort Mose.

Who was Jemmy?

The leader of the Stono Rebellion.

What was the Haitian Revolution?

The first successful slave revolt that led to the establishment of the Black Republic of Haiti.

What did the Haitian Revolution reverse?

The racial category meanings, as it challenged the notion of white superiority.

What was the role of Napoleon in the Haitian Revolution?

Napoleon attempted to regain control of Haiti and reimpose slavery.

What was the significance of the Louisiana Purchase?

It expanded the United States and brought French-controlled territories under American control.

What was the temporary ban of slavery by France?

France briefly abolished slavery in its colonies.

What were maroons?

Enslaved individuals who escaped and formed independent communities.

What was the Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811?

An uprising of enslaved individuals in Louisiana.

What was the Malê Uprising of Muslim slaves in Brazil in 1835?

An uprising of Muslim slaves in Brazil.

Who was Toussaint L'Ouverture?

A leader of the Haitian Revolution and a symbol of Black sovereignty.

What is covert resistance?

Resistance to slavery that was hidden or disguised.

What was the Indigenous revolt in Santo Domingo in 1526?

An uprising of Indigenous people against Spanish colonizers.

What was the German Coast Uprising of 1811?

A revolt of enslaved individuals in Louisiana.

What was the interregional impact of slave revolts?

Slave revolts inspired resistance movements in other regions.

Who was Charles Deslondes?

A leader of the German Coast Uprising.

Who was Madison Washington?

An enslaved man who led a rebellion on the Creole slave ship.

free Black population

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.

What were mutual-aid societies?

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.

Who were Black women activists?

used speeches and publications to call attention to the need to consider gender and Black women's experiences in antislavery discussions.

What were the combined effects of race and gender discrimination?

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.

What was the women's suffrage movement?

The fight for women's right to vote.

Who was Maria Stewart?

A Black woman activist and writer.

What were maroon communities?

Independent communities of escaped slaves.

What does self-emancipated mean?

runaway slaves

What were autonomous spaces?

Spaces where enslaved individuals had some degree of freedom and self-governance.

What was the Great Dismal Swamp?

A refuge for escaped slaves in Virginia and North Carolina.

What was Quilombo dos Palmares?

A maroon community in Brazil.

What were the Maroon Wars?

Conflicts between maroon communities and colonial powers.

Who was Bayano?

A leader of a maroon community in Panama.

Who was Queen Nanny?

A leader of the Maroons in Jamaica.