2.17-2.24 APAAS

What is the Second Seminole War?

It was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida that was the United States vs. the Seminoles, which consisted of the Black Seminoles who helped them as well from 1819-1860s to avoid their reinslavement. Black Seminoles were Black freedom seekers who allied with the Seminole people of Spanish Florida. This was the longest and the most costly of the Indian conflicts with the United States that happened after the Treaty of Payne’s Landing in 1832 that just called for the removal of all Seminoles from Florida because of the Indian Removal Act that demanded that all Native Americans endure a long journey to the new territory of Oklahoma because they were on land needed during the cotton boom from around 1812 to 1860. The Seminoles obviously didn’t want to leave their homeland for somewhere foreign to them, so they fought back, which led to this conflict in the first place. Even despite their resistance, they still were forcibly relocated, and by 1842 only a few hundred Native Americans still remained. This war never had a peaceful treaty, but it was declared over by William Worth on August 14, 1842. This battle showed the lengths all Seminoles, including Black Seminoles, would go to resist the U.S. just to stay in their homeland, showing their strength and dedication.

Who were the Black Seminoles?

This is an ethnic group of mixed Native Americans with African descent, mainly descendants of the Seminole people in Florida and later in Oklahoma. These people were known as freedom seekers because they were enslaved Black people who escaped and formed alliances with Black Seminoles. These alliances came to be by them making their way to Spanish Florida, which was owned by Spain from 1819, and developing their own Maroon communities in remote, inaccessible, and self-sustaining communities, which usually made it so that they lived in Indian territory. These communities became known as Black Towns, where they lived in separate towns with virtual autonomy, and these Black people shared farming practices with Seminoles and began to adopt their styles of dress. These towns were much better than the dehumanizing conditions of chattel slavery because they had the opportunity to get power positions in society, like by becoming bilingual and being highly regarded interpreters, and in some places they even intermarried with the Seminoles. However, not all Indigenous communities treated African Americans kindly. “The five civilized tribes” included Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations from late 1700-1800s because they adopted parts of American culture like Christianity and written languages, had a formal constitution, and adopted chattel slavery, where they created slave codes and slave patrols and helped in capturing escaped Black people. The Seminoles and free Black people both shaped each other's customs, artwork, political decisions, and agriculture, showing how important this legacy was for the development of both groups.

Who were Emigrationists?

These were people who believed that Black people couldn’t ever live equally in the United States because of the systemic racism that’s present and that the only way that they could achieve full freedom was by moving to other parts of the world, or it was because free Black people were detrimental to the system of enslavement present in the U.S. and the only way to fix that was to send them away, and this idea was present with the American Colonization Society in 1816. These places where they wanted to send African Americans were societies that were full of Black people, like West Africa, mainly Sierra Leone and Liberia, which was established in 1821, and Haiti, because slavery was abolished there in 1804 and their religion was Catholicism, so it wouldn’t be as foreign for them, and lastly Latin America, which Henry Highland Garnet thought of first. This idea was popularized mainly in the 1820-1860s because of the trends in the United States at this time, like the Dred Scott case of 1857 that denied both free and enslaved Black people freedom in the U.S. However, many African Americans didn’t like this because the U.S. was their home and they didn't fit in anywhere else, and these people were called anti-emigrationists, and they saw the U.S. as the only place where they belonged.  The most popular one was Paul Cuffee, who was a Black abolitionist and took 38 Black people to Sierra Leone.

Who is Paul Cuffee?

He was a Black Nationalist, who was an emigrationist believing that Black people could only gain self-determination outside of the U.S., and was born on January 17, 1759. He was born as a free African American in Massachusetts and became a successful merchant and sea captain. At just 14 years old, he signed on for the first of three voyages to the West Indies, which he used to deliver goods to Nantucket during the Revolutionary War. After the war, he built a successful ship business along the Atlantic Coast and in other parts of the world. He had a ship business in Westport, Massachusetts, and there he founded the first racially integrated school in the U.S., showing how wealthy he was and his accomplishments towards abolitionism. However, soon after, he became involved in the British effort to establish a colony in Sierra Leone, where they sought to send enslaved Black people there because the British thought they would be better off and also as a way to just send them away, but he only saw it in a positive light. This is how he was able to take 38 people to Sierra Leone in 1815, making them the first Black Americans to return to Africa through a Black-led initiative, but it soon failed by 1817 when a large Black audience voiced no support for this mission because of anti-emigration and they didn’t want to go to Africa. He died shortly after on September 7, 1817, showing that there are different ways to be both an abolitionist and a Black nationalist, even though most people wouldn’t agree with these ideas today.

Who was Martin R. Delany?

He was named the “father of Black Nationalism” because he was one of the first Black Nationalists and was an influential 19th CE abolitionist, journalist, physician, and author. He was born on May 6, 1812, in Charleston, Virginia, and had a very impactful life by being a teacher, writing for Frederick Douglass’s “The North Star”, which was an abolitionist paper, briefly attending Harvard Medical School, and being a Civil War officer, showing both his intelligence and influence at this time. At the time he also worked closely with Frederick Douglass, who is one of the most influential abolitionists ever; in the late 1850s he explored emigration to Liberia, and then after he returned to fight and recruit other Black soldiers for the Union during the Civil War and even had his song Toussaint Louverture Delany, named after the prominent leader in the Haitian Revolution, to fight in the all-Black Massachusetts 54th Regiment. He further heightened his rank in the army by earning the rank of major from Abraham Lincoln, becoming the 1st Black field officer in the U.S. Army, and then after Reconstruction ended, he went back to his previous focus on emigration by exploring sites in West Africa for colonization of African Americans because he was an emigrationist. Then in 1879 he wrote “The Principia of Ethnology,” which critiques racist theories that were held at this time and argues about the importance of African civilizations in human history, promoting Black unity and Black pride. He died on January 24, 1885, showing that Black people could achieve anything they put their minds to with his various achievements and that they are entitled to the freedoms that the white man has.

Who were Anti-Emigrationists?

These were people who viewed the United States as the only place for African Americans, because the U.S. is their home and they are outsiders everywhere else, and viewed equality and the abolition of slavery as reflecting the nation's ideas more. This occurred in response to the American Colonization Society, 1816 to 1865, when they achieved independence. Then viewed emigration instead as solely a way to continue racial discrimination and get rid of all Black people, which is inconsistent with the nation's own constitution that stated that “All men are created equal,” showing that they really just meant that all White people were. They believed that all Black people had birthright citizenship and that they and their ancestors worked for the infrastructure and crops here, so they deserved to be able to have freedom in nowhere else but their homeland, and they hoped to achieve political representation, liberation, and full integration into American society, the complete opposite of what the emigrationists thought they wanted.Many emigrationists believed that moving away from the U.S. was the only solution for African Americans to have freedom, and these places were chosen based on their Black population, climate, and shared history, and they thought that it was Black Nationalism because it promoted Black self-determination and racial pride, but these people went against this idea and showed that all of this could be achieved within the U.S. The most popular ones of the time included abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass.

What was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850?

This was a federal law passed on September 18, 1850, by the 31st United States Congress that strengthened existing fugitive slave laws, because it required that all escaped slaves must be returned to their owners through the help of other citizens, even in free states. This was heavily inspired by the Underground Railroad that aided in the escape of hundreds of enslaved people every year. This also came after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, but resistance to that previous act led to this one, where the punishments for both escaping and helping someone escape their enslavement were greater. This act increased tensions between the North and the South by forcing Northern states to be complicit in slavery, and this angered many abolitionists and further alienated them because they saw this act for what it really was, and that is a direct threat to liberty. While in the South, it was just a way to protect their “property,” and it’s only right to do this because these slave owners rightfully paid for these slaves, and so now they’re their property, and either helping enslaved people escape or not capturing them once they’ve escaped is an attack on their very way of life. This also helped the rise of the Republican Party because it's the opposite of how it is today because they were the radical party because it increased anti-slavery sentiments in the North. This act was harmful for many escaped slaves because it heightened their chances of getting captured, and this even worried Frederick Douglass because he was an escaped slave even though he is one of the most famous abolitionists ever.

Who was Frederick Douglass?

He was an international abolitionist for slavery, an advocate for human rights, an author known for powerful speeches, and the most photographed man of the 19th CE. He was born in Maryland around 1817 or 1818 to enslaved parents. Sophia Auld, who was the wife of 1 of his enslavers, taught him the alphabet that allowed him to become literate. With this knowledge, he taught other enslaved people how to read and write. He escaped from his enslavement with the help of Anna Murray, who was a freed Black woman and became his wife later on. He soon spoke about his life as a slave, which boosted abolitionist movements in Massachusetts, and worked on William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist publication, “The Liberator.” Then in 1845 he published his most popular memoir, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” and in 1847 he partnered with white abolitionist Martin Delany to form “The North Star,” which advocated for women and Black women’s rights. Most importantly, he pressured Abraham Lincoln to protect Black freedom in order to preserve the union, resulting in the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan 1, 1863, that eventually freed enslaved Black people, and died on February 20, 1895. This shows his importance in advocating against the system of enslavement, being one of the first fugitives to do so, and even helping in the Emancipation Proclamation that aided in the freeing enslaved Black people after the Civil War.

Who was Henry Highland Garnet?

He was an African American abolitionist, minister, educator, and diplomat, born on December 23, 1815, who escaped slavery as a child in Maryland with his family and then grew up in New York City. Growing up he attended 3 schools and got into abolitionism mainly because of becoming a Christian minister and later a pastor, and he was associated with the American Anti-Slavery Society and was a huge advocate for radical resistance. This movement favored political action over moral suasion, and he used his public speaking skills to urge African Americans in any way possible to take direct action in freeing themselves from slavery. His most well-known speech was “Call to Rebellion” in 1843, which expressed his ideas about freeing oneself from enslavement. This same speech showed his radicalism in a way that was foreign to most people and shocked many, and the convention refused to endorse it after that. In 1841, he married his wife, abolitionist Julia Ward Williams, who was a runaway slave from Maryland, and they had 3 kids together. He often brought her up to talk about her own experiences of enslavement while he did his speeches to add more humanity and a more personal experience of slavery. He was also a supporter of emigration, having founded the American Colonization Society with Martin Delany to send free Blacks to Mexico, Liberia, or the West Indies. On Sunday, February 12, 1865, he delivered a sermon in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first Black man to speak in that chamber, and it was for the thirteenth amendment. In 1881, he was appointed minister of Liberia, having focused more on emigration instead of abolitionism later in his life, but he died on February 13, 1882, within two months of arriving there.

What is “Radical Resistance?”

It was a way to overthrow slavery through direct action like revolts and violence in order to address the dehumanizing nature of enslavement that they have to endure every day. It was supported by many abolitionists who saw that slavery should be ended in any way possible and that it shouldn’t happen one day or in one year and should instead happen now, and it was popularized around the early to late 1800s. This only started after these leaders became frustrated with the limited progress that moral suasion had in the abolitionist movement and instead spoke for more direct action to be done in order to achieve emancipation. Advocates of it used publications that detailed the horrors of slavery, also known as slave narratives, to make African Americans feel their frustration and desperation for freedom by letting them understand that they understand what they’ve been and are going through in order to use any tactic to achieve freedom. The most well-known revolts using this idea are the Haitian Revolution from 1791 to 1804, Nat Turner’s Rebellion of 1831, the Amistad Mutiny in 1839, and the Creole Revolt in 1841. Abolitionists that advocated for this were Henry Highland Garnet and David Walker with his 1829 pamphlet “Walker’s Appeal,” which denounced slavery and stated how it’s unconstitutional and addressed both free and enslaved Black people to resist oppression. “Walker’s Appeal” and other anti-slavery pamphlets were smuggled throughout the South as a form of this resistance.

What is the Underground Railroad?

It existed from the late 1700s to 1865, with it flourishing from around 1830 to 1865, first used in an 1839 newspaper. It was a covert network of Black and White abolitionists who provided transportation, shelter, and other resources to enslaved people from slavery in the South; these enslaved people were often resettled in the North, Canada, and Mexico. It helped around 30,000 people reach freedom during its peak. Even so, it wasn’t actually a train; they still used the language of train infrastructure: stations = stops and safehouses, conductors = guides who led escapees to different stations, and station masters = people who hid escaped slaves in their homes. It was so successful that the government passed 2 different “Fugitive Slave Acts” in 1793 and 1850. These Slave Acts were very dangerous for newly escaped slaves because they allowed enslavers the right to legally kidnap these fugitives and have citizens and state officials help as well to return them back to their enslavers; however, these acts just show the incredible role that this system played in the freedom of thousands of Black Americans throughout the United States. The most popular conductor was Harriet Tubman, who was a conductor for 8 years and never failed to lead any enslaved person to freedom. 

Who was Harriet Tubman?

She was an American abolitionist and political activist who was born into slavery in Maryland around March 1822, where she began working at just 6 years old and was enslaved until she was 26 years old in 1849, and she’s most commonly known as being a conductor on the Underground Railroad. When she was enslaved, her sisters were taken away in a chain gang, she was taken from her mother, and she was married. Eventually she escaped but returned to the South 19 or more times to resume her family and others. She was a conductor from 1850 to 1860, and her role was to guide enslaved people in the South to free states in the North, and she had to make around 13 trips during this time. She sang spirituals in and around plantations to alert enslaved people of her presence. While she was a conductor, she rescued 70 people and gave directions to many more people to freedom, and never lost a single person on the way. After working as a conductor, she became a nurse and cook for the Union army and then used her knowledge of geographic and social networks to serve as a spy in the Civil War, being the first woman to lead a major military expedition in the Combahee River Ferry raid, which saved about 700 enslaved people. She died on March 10, 1913, and will be remembered through her contributions towards the abolitionist movement through the people she saved.

What is Black Face?

It originated in the United States in the 1830s with minstrel shows, which were an attempt to mock Black people and culture through using it and other dehumanizing portrayals, like all Black people are stupid, happy slaves, and love watermelon. This is when non-Black, often white European performers covered their faces in often just Black paint, not being a skin color that any Black person actually has, drew on big red lips, and exaggerated costumes to portray a caricature of what many people thought Black people were at the time, and it even contributed to more stereotypes. It wasn’t taken seriously by most people because it was just seen as entertainment, but it was harmful, racist, and deeply offensive, and this is the mindset that many people use to justify it even today. One important abolitionist who saw the harm of this was Frederick Douglass, who was the most photographed man of the 19th CE and saw the importance of photographs for showing who African Americans really were and their humanity. So, he always made sure to reflect who he wanted to be perceived as in his portraits by always being in formal clothing, never smiling and always wearing a stern expression, and having a confident position. 

What is cartes-des-visites?

These were small cards that were the size of a formal visiting card, with a black and white photograph, often of a celebrity, attached to it that were popularized in the 19th CE. However, for Black people these weren’t just regular photographs that could be reproduced if wanted; they were used to counter negative and distorted portrayals of Black people, like with Blackface and drawings like it depicting them as stupid, lazy, ignorant, cowardly, uncivilized, comical, dressed in rags, and overexaggerating their features, most commonly their lips. They did this by carefully deciding their postures, facial expressions, gazes, and fashion that opposed the common stereotypes that Black people faced by showing their humanity, class, respectability, and reclaiming their identity. These ideas became popular with Frederick Douglass, who was the most photographed man of the 19th CE, by always making sure to wear formal clothing, have styled hair, have a stern expression, and have good posture, because he understood the importance of photography in showing history, emotions, and its legacy but also how it can be interpreted the wrong way and lack context. So, he did this to disprove stereotypes that minstrelsy caused by showing Black beauty and to reclaim the Black image. These cards also were used to raise money for abolitionist efforts. Like with Sojourner Truth, she sold her own picture for her own benefit because she was famous enough that everybody, Black and White, would want to spend money on their image. They are important because they're evidence of Black’s fight against negative representation and for freedom.

What were Slave Narratives?

• They were writings by formerly enslaved people of their experiences during enslavement in order to help the abolitionist movements because they showed the humanity of enslaved people and the conditions present in the system of slavery from a personal point of view. They described the suffering during work, methods of escape, and how enslaved people became literate, like in Frederick Douglass’s story with Sophia Auld, who was his enslaver’s wife, by teaching him the alphabet.  They were popularized around the early 1800s to 1865 because of the fight for freedom before the 13th Amendment was passed or the Emancipation Proclamation was ordered. The most popular slave narratives and the stories we tend to hear about enslavement come from a man’s perspective only, like with Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” Olaudah Equiano’s “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,” and Solomon Northup’s "Twelve Years a Slave.” The experiences that women faced during enslavement were much different from a man’s; even so, both were horrific in different ways, and the choices that they had, like deciding to run away but how that would leave your family, especially if you have young children, and how they might be punished for your escape, and in cases of sexual assault, what they could do to prevent that, and if there was anything they could even do at all. These women still had choices, but they were often much fewer and worse than Black men’s at this time. Women’s narratives often described their distinct experience of constant vulnerability to sexual violence and exploitation and often focused on 1800s gender norms that were domestic life, family, modesty, and resistance against sexual violence. Just like men, they also described their resistance, but in this case it was to sexual violence and enslavement of their baby, who was their enslaver’s, by fighting off attackers, using herbs to induce abortion, killing their infants, and escaping with their children. The most well-known women’s slave narrative is Harriet Jacobs’s “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” These were important in order to spread awareness about the horrific system of enslavement and to advance abolitionist movements because of it.

What is the Civil War?

It was a war between the Confederacy and the Union about slavery because the Confederacy wanted to keep their slaves, while the Union wanted to end slavery throughout the U.S., but because leaders from both sides didn’t directly state that and instead used phrases like the war was to “preserve the Union,” some people believe it was about state’s rights instead of slavery, which is incorrect. It was the largest and most destructive war in U.S. history, believed to have had a death toll of around 625,000, and that number was large enough that it was nearly how many American soldiers died in all of the other wars that the U.S. has fought combined, and millions were injured, and it left most of the South in shambles. The beginning of the war was Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, which caused seven Southern states to form the Confederate States of the U.S., and four states soon joined after them, because these states knew that Lincoln was against slavery and that he threatened the expansion of slavery. The war was from 1861 to April 6, 1865, with the Confederates surrendering, leading to a Union victory, but this win wouldn’t have been possible without the African American soldiers that fought alongside the Union. Thousands of free and enslaved African Americans joined the Union war effort to advance the cause of abolition and Black citizenship; 200,000 Black men served in this war, with 50,000 free men from the North and 150,000 formerly enslaved men from the South. Enlisting for service was a sign for many African Americans of their commitment to seeing themselves as U.S. citizens, and they were either fighting for their freedom with the Union only after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 that allowed Black soldiers to fight when the Union army faced shortages or were forced to fight for the Confederates by their masters. The most well-known army of Black Union soldiers was the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, who were led by Robert Gould Shaw, who was a white commander. The recruitment of these African Americans for service in the Union army was authorized after the Emancipation Proclamation, and these soldiers were recruited by both Black and White abolitionists, and although they weren’t treated as well as the White soldiers with a lower pay and sometimes no pay at all, their battle at Fort Wagner became their most famous battle on July 18, 1863. It led 40% of their unit members to either be severely injured or killed, including their commander, and these soldiers were important to showing the world how instrumental Black soldiers could be in war efforts.

What is the Emancipation Proclamation?

It was an executive order signed by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863, that declared that all enslaved people in Confederate states are free; however, it barely did anything compared to the 13th Amendment because it wasn’t actually signed into the constitution and didn’t declare freedom for those in the Union. This decision changed the Civil War’s focus to be on ending slavery and nothing else, which was mainly tied to Frederick Douglass’s own beliefs because he pushed Lincoln to focus on ending the system of enslavement, because although Lincoln is seen as having a very clear view of slavery as evil, if you look back at his speeches, he really was just a performer saying whatever he thought would get him the most amount of votes wherever he was. But he was more against slavery than he was for it. This declaration also announced that Black men could now fight for the Union and in the Navy, which transformed the Civil War because by the end of it, almost 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors were fighting for a Union victory because it guaranteed their freedom. Although Black men could fight since July 1862, with Congress passing the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, Lincoln’s declaration is what officially allowed Black men to join in the Civil War. This executive order depended on the Union’s victory because it declared freedom for all people in Confederate states; it couldn’t actually be implemented unless the Confederates surrendered, which happened on April 9, 1865. Which freed 3.5 to 4 million enslaved people throughout the South, with the last ones being freed in Galveston, Texas, on June 19th, 1865.

What is the 13th Amendment?

It abolished slavery throughout the U.S. except for punishment for a crime, which was used to keep Black people in a subordinate social status by causing a loophole where Black people were arrested for many little crimes to provide labor and rebuild the Southern economy after the Civil War, still keeping them as slaves. This was the major issue of this amendment, because even though it ended slavery, it still made it possible to easily enslave Black people, but in a much smaller way, showing that these leaders truly never had Black people’s best intentions in mind. It was passed in Congress on January 31, 1865, and was ratified on December 6, 1865, and Lincoln had to use his political power to push it through the reluctant House of Representatives after it passed the Senate. This was more powerful than the Emancipation Proclamation because it applied to states outside of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and it would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment in order to guarantee the abolition of slavery. The Civil War was a war caused by slavery, with the Confederates wanting to keep their slaves and the Union wanting to outlaw slavery, so it only makes sense that after the Union won the war, slavery was officially abolished. This was a part of the three Reconstruction Amendments that included the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all people born in the U.S., and the 15th, which gave Black men the right to vote. However, after the 15th Amendment was passed, 80% of African American men registered to vote, but the states implemented laws to stop Black people from voting even if it would reduce the number of white people who could vote using the Grandfather Clause and Poll Tax, leading to almost no Black people being allowed to vote until 1954.

What is Juneteenth?

It’s celebrated on June 19th for being the day when all enslaved people became free at last in the United States, because before then the people of Galveston, Texas, remained slaves until June 19th, 1865, due to 2,000 Union soldiers finally announcing that the 250,000 enslaved people were now free. Texas was able to keep slaves even after the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, because although it called for all enslaved people to be legally free in Confederate states, it couldn’t be implemented in places still under Confederate control. Slavery was only once abolished for good throughout the U.S. with the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865, because the 13th Amendment was written into the U.S. Constitution, and it ended slavery throughout the U.S., while the Emancipation Proclamation was only an official announcement made by President Lincoln, meaning that it only applied to the Civil War and wasn’t passed by Congress. The Emancipation Proclamation could only be passed for real after the Civil War and the Confederate areas surrendered on April 9, 1865, but Galveston, Texas, was able to keep slaves for so long because they were far from Union control, and since it was economically invested in slavery, owners just didn’t inform their slaves that they were free until the Union troops did. This holiday represents liberation, resilience, Black culture, and ongoing struggles for resilience, making it a holiday still celebrated today in many different ways by many people throughout the United States, which is why it was made an official federal holiday on June 17, 2021, by President Biden.