Afro Outline

UNIT 1 - civilizations

Egypt - pink sheet

Location

  • based upon the nile river

    • provided transportation - ability to trade, share ideas

    • provided food source - dense soil brought nutrients from the floods

Kingdoms

  • Old kingdom - known for pyramids

  • Middle Kingdom - known for trade

  • New Kingdom - known for empires, valley of the kings

Achievements in Egypt

  • Hieroglyphics - first writing system

  • Pyramids

  • First civilization

Noble People

  • King Tut - famous because his tomb was unopened

  • Ramses II - successful military leader - could possible be the Pharaoh in the exodus story in the bible

  • Hatshepsut - first female Pharaoh - great leader

  • Menes - first Pharaoh

Mali

Characteristics

  • Wealth

    • They got their wealth from the salt and gold trade across its borders

  • Practiced the religion of islam

Achievements

  • The creation of a new University in the city of timbuktu

  • The spread of islam and influence of academic and religious leaders

Notable People

  • King Sundiata Keita - The lion prince - known as brilliant military leader

  • Mansa Musa - Known for his Hajj to Mecca where he accidentally crashed the economies of numerous cities by giving away tons of gold

Swahili Coast

Characteristics

  • located on the eastern coast of africa

  • dominated trade throughout the indian ocean

  • language was a mix of mantu and arabic, culture is a mix of west african and islam

Achievements

  • mixture of language allowed for them to establish trade relationships with other continents

  • people from the swahili states were able to act as intermediates between these other continents and west african kingdoms

UNIT 2 - transatlantic slave trade

How it started

  • Columbus was looking Asia, but ended up in a “new world” that the europeans didnt know exsisted. People were looking for gold and other treasures, whcih they took from native americans

  • after the gold and silver ran out, europeans turned to sugar plantations.

  • The native americans kept getting diseases and dying out, so they turned to slaves from africa would were immune

Capturing slaves

  • europeans used african slave catches to get slaves

  • slaves had to be taken from deeper in africa, then marches to the coast

  • ships arrived to take the slaves to the americas, slaves were stored in slave factories on the coast.

Middle passage

  • 2.5-5 million slaves died during the trip

  • 10-12 million arrived alive in the americas

  • took between 6-16 weeks

  • average voyage was 9 weeks

  • slaves died from diseases, violence, and suicide

  • loose pack - lying on backs

  • tight pack - laying on sides

Why did it happen

  • it was extremely profitable for slave traders

  • racism was the excuse for slavery

  • They treated the slaves bad bc it was more profitable to not take care of them, and fear of slave revolts - weak slaves were safer

After the middle passage

  • slaves were cleaned

  • slaves needed medical

  • slaves needed exercise and good food

  • slaves were seasoned

Seasoning slaves

  • Breaking wills and teaching skills

  • whipping

  • beating

  • withholding food

  • changing names

  • taught job/ task skills

  • taught basic language skills

Slave categories

  • new africans - just off the ship and not seasoned yet - cheapest slaves

  • old africans - seasoned africans - average cost slaves

  • creoles - american born slaves and seasons - most expensive

UNIT 3 - revolutionary war and the key documents

Explain, in depth, how African Americans have impacted both the Revolutionary War and the key documents (Declaration of Independence and Constitution) founding the United States of America.

Notes

Early years in slavery

  • Indentured servants - mostly white people from the british islands who were set free after 7 years

  • The first africans - brought to British colonies by accident, were NOT slaves

  • Virginia was the first colony to initialize slave, which means to establish it in law.

  • Virginia became the model of how to make a successful colony in the “new world”

Vocab

  • durante vida - for life - slaves were chattel

  • , and slaves were no longer people but property

  • lowland - coastal areas of south carolina and georgia - had very few whites

  • Quaker - a christian denomination who are very interested in pursuing social justice

  • abolitionists - people who fought against slavery ( mostly from pennsylvania)

Middle and new england colonies

  • There were lots of quakers in the north

  • new england had very few slaves due to the climate being unsuitable for farming and religious reasons

  • new england participated in transportation for slaves

  • slave ships were built by new england colonies

  • middle colonies had many slaves but most slaves did non farm work

Population growth/ impacts

  • new york and new jersey were dutch colonies ( called amsterdam), they encouraged many free black to live in the colonies. This populars impacted the culture of the colonies establishing free african communities

  • In mid 1700s north america experience major growth in population in large part due to immigration from europe and increase of slaves from africa

    • because of the increased population on the atlantic coast, there was pressure on westward explasion which led to conflict with both native americans and french settlers.

    • in europe the british were fighting against the french in the conflict known as the 7 year war

    • this fight spread to the north america in the conflict was the french and indian war. (BRITISH WON THE WAR)

    • after the british won in north america they gained huge territories

After the french and indian war

  • impacted the feelings of americans and the british towards a war of indepdence

  • american colonists felt that they were taken advantage of by the british because the presence of british soldier in the colonies.

  • the british felt the americans were ungrateful because the french and indian war was very expensive so the british imposed more taxes on the colonists

  • the british had pills to pay and the colonists paid very little taxes previously

  • the founding fathers responded to the taxes by protests (marches), boycotting (refused to pay/ buy), and vandalism (boston tea party)

The american revolution

  • on april 15 1775 a brief confrontation between colonial minuteman and british soilders lead to “the shot heard around the world” in lexington. nobody knows who fired first but that started the revolution

  • lord dunmore offered freedom to any slave who would fight for the british

  • over 5000 african americas fought for the patriots

  • over 20000 slaves fought for the british

  • In the middle of the revolutionary war thomas jefferson wrote the decloration of independence which is a clear statement of human rights

  • the decloration of indepence brought hope to africans as free blacks thought it meant equality and slaves thought it meant freedom

How the revolution affected african americans

  • over 100000 slaaves ran away from their owners

  • 20000 black loyalists who fought for the british were removed from the country and sent to Nova scotia, jamacia, and sierra lone

  • after the war some states started to aboloish slavery

US constitution

  • after struggling to organize after the revolution, the founding fathers decided to meet to create a new government under a new us consitition

  • the world slavery did not come up in the consitution but it talks about it in other ways

    • slavery was not outlawed

    • the slave trade could be outlawed in 20 years (stops new slaves from being brought into the country from africa)

    • slavery impacted how congress works. slaves would be equal to 3/5 a person in the house of representives when counting the state population for determining how many states there are in the house

  • runaway slaves must be rejured to their masters

  • slavery would be outlawed in the northwest (climate, religion, philosphy, free blacks influences

UNIT 4 - African life in the USA

Describe, in detail, what slavery was like for African Americans in the USA.  Be sure to include details about their work life, culture and attempts at gaining freedom.