African American History

Thirteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that formally abolished slavery

Fourteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that defined U.S.
citizenship to include African Americans and guaranteed citizens due process and equal protection of the law.

Black reconstruction

The revolutionary period from 1867 to 1877 when, for the first time ever, African American men actively participated in the mainstream politics of the reconstructed southern states and, in turn, transformed the nation’s political life.

Exodusters

African American migrants who left the South to settle on federal land in Kansas.

Fifteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that enfranchised African American men.

Ladinos

Latinized blacks who were born or raised in Spain,
Portugal, or these nations’ Atlantic or American colonies and who spoke fluent Spanish or Portuguese.

Bozales

A term used by the Spanish for recently imported
African captives.

Elmina Castle

A fortress in present-day Ghana, built by the Portuguese as a trading post in in 1482 and used as a major slave trading center by the Dutch from 1637 to 1814.

Triangle Trade

The trade system that propelled the transatlantic slave trade, in which European merchants exchanged manufactured goods for enslaved Africans, who they shipped to the Americas in exchange for New World commodities, which they then shipped back to European markets.

Middle Passage

The phase of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in which slave ships transported enslaved people from the West African coast to slave ports in the Americas.

Cash Crop

Readily stable crops grown for commercial sale and export rather than local use.

Indentured Servants

White laborers who came to the English North American colonies under contract to work for a specified amount of time, usually four to seven years.

Chattel Slavery

A system by which slaves were considered portable
property and denied all rights or legal authority over
themselves or their children.

Dismal Swamp

A coastal plain in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina that became a refuge for runaway slaves in 1730.

Stono Rebellion

A slave rebellion that took place near South Carolina’s Stono River in 1739. It was led by slaves who hoped to find freedom in Spanish Florida. The rebels killed about twenty whites before they were captured and subdued.

Gullah

A creole language composed of a blend of West African language and English.

Great Awakening

A multidenominational series of evangelical revivals that took place in North America between the 1730s and the 1780s.

Somerset Case

A British legal case that freed an American slave named James Somerset and inspired other slaves to sue for their freedom.

Loyalists

Colonists who remained loyal to Britain during the
American Revolution.

Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation

A document issued by Virginia’s royal governor, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, in November 1775, offering freedom to “rebel” colonists’ slaves who joined his forces.

three fifths compromise

A compromise between the northern and southern states, reached during the Constitutional Convention, establishing that three-fifth s of each state’s slave population would be counted in determining federal taxes and representation in the House of Representatives.

Fugitive slave clause

A constitutional clause permitting slave owners of any state to retrieve their fugitive slaves from any other state.

Haitian Revolution

A rebellion against slavery and colonialism in the French colony of Saint Domingue that led to the establishment of an independent country with black rule.

Gabriels Rebellion

An abortive slave plot that took place in Richmond,
Virginia in 1800. It was led by an enslaved man known as Prosser’s Gabriel (Gabriel Prosser).

Nationalization act of 1790

The nation’s first immigration law, which instituted a two-year residency requirement for immigrants who wished to become citizens and limited nationalization to free white people.

Missouri Compromise

An agreement balancing the admission of Missouri as a slave state with the admission of Maine as a free state and prohibiting slavery north of latitude 36º30’ in any state except Missouri.

Indian Removal Act

An act signed into law by President Andrew Jackson that forced Indians living east of the Mississippi River to relocate to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).

Amistad Case

An 1839 slave insurrection aboard the Amistad, a Spanish ship, in international waters near Cuba. The case became a widely publicized abolitionist cause and ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which freed the rebels in 1841.

Underground Railroad

A network of antislavery activists who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and Canada.

Invisible Church

A term used to describe groups of African American slaves who met in secret for Christian worship.

Contraband

A refugee slave seeking protection behind Union lines. This designation recognized slaves’ status as human property and paved the way for their emancipation.

U.S. Colored Troops

The official designation for the division of black units that joined the U.S. Army beginning in 1863.

Emancipation Proclamation

A presidential proclamation, issued by Abraham Lincoln, freeing all slaves under Confederate control and authorizing the use of black troops in the Civil War.

Special Field Order 15

A military order by Union General William T. Sherman that granted freed people the right to land that had been abandoned by Confederate plantation owners.

Freedmans Bureau

A federal agency created during Reconstruction to aid freedpeople in their transition to freedom. At first, the bureau helped blacks secure food, shelter, and clothing; eventually, the bureau settled disputes, enforced labor contracts, built black schools, and established courts to protect blacks’ civil rights.