Unit 3 Afro History

Sectional Differences

Differences between the North and South in economic, social, and political aspects during the Antebellum period.

Missouri Compromise (1820)

Legislation that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state to maintain a balance and reduce sectional conflict.

Abolition Movement

A social and political push to end slavery in the United States.

Underground Railroad

A network of secret routes and safe houses used to help escaped slaves reach freedom.

Popular Sovereignty

The principle that states could choose whether to be slave or free states.

Compromise of 1850

A series of laws aimed at resolving sectional tensions, including the admission of California as a free state and strict fugitive slave laws.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Legislation that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allowed for popular sovereignty, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise.

Bleeding Kansas

A series of violent political confrontations in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

A Supreme Court ruling stating that African Americans were not citizens and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

John Brown's Raid

An armed raid led by abolitionist John Brown at Harpers Ferry to initiate a slave rebellion.

Election of 1860

The presidential election in which Abraham Lincoln won without any southern electoral votes, leading to the secession of Southern states.

Secession

The act of Southern states leaving the Union, forming the Confederacy.

Emancipation Proclamation

An executive order by Lincoln that freed slaves in rebellious states, changing the war's purpose to include ending slavery.

Radical Republicans

A faction within the Republican Party that sought to use Reconstruction to radically change the South.

Freedmen's Bureau

A government agency established to aid former enslaved people by providing food, education, and protection from violence.

13th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that abolished slavery in the United States.

14th Amendment

The amendment granting citizenship to all persons born in the United States.

Jim Crow Laws

State and local laws enforcing racial segregation after the end of slavery.

Sharecropping

An agricultural system where freedmen were given land and supplies in return for a portion of the crops, leading to perpetual debt.

Gerrymandering

The manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor one party over another.

KKK

The Ku Klux Klan, a group formed by ex-Confederate soldiers that used violence to suppress Black rights.

Mississippi Plan

A strategy used to disenfranchise Black voters and shift political power in the South by using intimidation and violence.