African American History Exam 1

SHORT ANSWER SECTION

Cash Crop:

Crops grown for profit specifically. They sell well.

Indentured Servants:

Individuals who sign a contract to work for a specified period, typically 4 to 7 years, in exchange for passage to a new land, along with food, shelter, and other basic necessities. After completing the agreed-upon term, the individual would be released from the contract as a free person.

Chattel Slavery:

Chattel slavery is a system where enslaved people are treated as chattel, meaning they are considered the personal property of another person and can be bought, sold, or inherited like any other tangible possession, such as livestock or furniture.

Dismal Swamp:

A vast, treacherous wilderness in Virginia and North Carolina that served as a crucial refuge for self-emancipated people, known as maroons, who escaped slavery to form autonomous communities and resist enslavement from the 17th century until the end of the Civil War.

Stono Rebellion:

The Stono Rebellion was the largest slave uprising in the British American colonies, occurring in September 1739 in South Carolina when enslaved Africans, led by a man named Jemmy, stole weapons and marched south to freedom in Spanish Florida. The rebels killed white colonists, but they were eventually met by a militia, resulting in a violent confrontation that led to the deaths of many enslaved people and the passage of the harsh Slave Code of 1740. 

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. 
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. 

Gabriel’s 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. 

Compromise of 1850:

The Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state; abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia; allowed the people of New Mexico and Utah to decide the slavery question themselves; and, as a concession to the South, enacted a new fugitive slave law.

Fugitive Slave Act (1850):

Part of the compromise of 1850, this law strengthened federal authority over fugitive slaves and detailed punishment for those who aided fugitive slaves in avoiding capture.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854):

A law that allowed the residents of Kansas and Nebraska Territories to decide whether slavery should be prohibited or allowed in their respective territories.

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857):

A U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that Dred Scott and his wife Harriet were not entitled to sue in a court of law and that they were not free even though they had been taken to a territory where slavery had been outlawed. Furthermore, the court ruled that no person of African descent, whether enslaved or free, could be a citizen of the United States.

John Brown’s Raid (1859): 

An unsuccessful attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and incite a slave insurrection.

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 freedpeople the right to land that had been abandoned by Confederate plantation owners. 

Freedman’s 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.

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. 

Fifteenth Amendment:

The constitutional amendment that enfranchised African American men.

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.

Jim Crow:

A system of laws and customs that enforced segregation, the spatial and physical separation of the races.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896):

A U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of state laws mandating racial segregation in public facilities. 

Wilmington Insurrection (1898):

A race riot in Wilmington, North Carolina, that restored white political power in the city and signaled the end of biracial politics in the city and state.

Pan-Africanism:

A global political movement committed to African self-determination and the end of European domination of the African continent.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP):

Founded in 1909, the leading advocacy group for Black civil rights up to the present.