UNIT 2: FREEDOM, ENSLAVEMENT,
Q: Who were ladinos and why were they important?
A: Ladinos were Africans acculturated to Iberian customs who served as intermediaries, explorers, and early settlers in the Americas.
Q: What were Atlantic creoles?
A: Africans with knowledge of European languages, trade, and customs who often gained limited social mobility before slavery became rigid.
Q: What role did Africans play in Spanish colonization efforts?
A: They helped claim Indigenous lands for Spain, participated in expeditions, and sometimes gained freedom through military service.
Q: Who was Juan Garrido and what was his contribution?
A: A free African conquistador who joined Spanish expeditions, helped conquer parts of the Caribbean and Florida, and planted the first wheat in Mexico.
Q: Who was Estevanico and what happened to him?
A: An enslaved Moroccan who explored Texas and the Southwest and served as a guide and translator before being killed by Indigenous people.
Q: What was the duration and scale of the transatlantic slave trade?
A: It lasted over 350 years, forcibly transporting over 12.5 million Africans, with only 5% sent directly to the U.S.
Q: Which port received the most enslaved Africans in the U.S.?
A: Charleston, South Carolina, where nearly half of U.S.-bound enslaved Africans arrived.
Q: What regions in Africa did most U.S. enslaved people originate from?
A: Senegambia, Angola, Nigeria, and the Gold Coast; nearly half came from Senegambia and Angola alone.
Q: What cultural effects resulted from diverse African origins?
A: They led to the blending of languages, religions, and customs that shaped African American culture.
Q: Which European countries were the top slave-trading nations?
A: Portugal, Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands.
Q: What were the three stages of the transatlantic slave journey?
A: Capture and march to the coast, the Middle Passage across the Atlantic, and final transport to labor destinations.
Q: Describe conditions during the Middle Passage.
A: Captives were packed tightly, faced starvation, disease, abuse, and about 15% died during the voyage.
Q: What happened in the final stage of the slave trade?
A: Survivors were quarantined, resold, and transported within the Americas, often far from their port of arrival.
Q: How did the slave trade affect West African societies?
A: It increased warfare, weakened communities, and caused long-term instability by removing generations of leaders and kin.
Q: What are slave narratives and their purpose?
A: Autobiographical writings by formerly enslaved people used to document their experiences and support abolition.
Q: How did captives resist aboard slave ships?
A: Through hunger strikes, suicide attempts, revolts, and sabotaging the ship’s crew or structure.
Q: What was the Amistad revolt?
A: In 1839, Sengbe Pieh led a rebellion on La Amistad; survivors later won a Supreme Court case securing their freedom.
Q: What impact did resistance have on the slave trade?
A: It led to increased security on ships and higher risks and costs for slavers.
Q: What did slave ship diagrams depict?
A: Tightly packed human cargo illustrating inhumane conditions, used by abolitionists to expose slavery’s brutality.
Q: How did art and visual culture support abolition?
A: Artists used symbols of slave ships and African suffering to honor the past and push for justice.
Q: What was the ‘Second Middle Passage’?
A: The forced migration of over one million African Americans from the upper to the lower South to meet cotton labor demands.
Q: How did cotton shape slavery in the U.S.?
A: The cotton boom increased the value of enslaved labor and fueled westward expansion of slavery.
Q: What was the experience at slave auctions?
A: Enslaved people were inspected, separated from families, and sold under degrading and violent conditions.
Q: How did African American authors portray auctions?
A: They used narratives and poetry to describe emotional trauma and counter myths of slavery’s benevolence.
Q: What types of labor did enslaved people perform?
A: They worked in agriculture, skilled trades, domestic service, and institutions like churches and colleges.
Q: What was the gang system of labor?
A: A tightly controlled system where enslaved people worked from dawn to dusk under overseers, mainly in cotton and tobacco.
Q: What was the task system of labor?
A: Laborers had daily quotas and some autonomy; often used in rice cultivation, allowing cultural retention like Gullah language.
Q: How did enslaved people shape the U.S. economy?
A: They generated wealth for enslavers and built infrastructure but were denied wages and property rights.
Q: What African skills influenced American culture?
A: Basket-weaving, rice farming, music, carpentry, blacksmithing, and herbal medicine.
Q: What were slave codes?
A: Laws that defined slavery as lifelong, inheritable, and race-based, restricting mobility and rights of enslaved people.
Q: How did the Constitution address slavery?
A: It avoided the word ‘slavery’ but included clauses like the 3/5 compromise and fugitive slave return law.
Q: What was the Dred Scott decision?
A: The Supreme Court ruled that Black people were not U.S. citizens and had no legal standing, even if free.
Q: What was partus sequitur ventrem?
A: A law that made children’s legal status follow that of their mother, ensuring hereditary slavery.
Q: What was the ‘one-drop rule’?
A: A racial classification system where any African ancestry defined a person as Black.
Q: How did African Americans use art and crafts to express culture?
A: They created quilts, pottery, and baskets influenced by African traditions to preserve stories, heritage, and community
Great! Here’s Part 2 of your Unit 2 flashcards (continuing from where we left off):
Q: What instruments did African Americans develop?
A: They adapted West African instruments like drums, banjos, and rattles using local materials, maintaining musical traditions.
Q: What was Gullah and its significance?
A: A creole language combining African and English elements, developed among enslaved communities in the Carolina lowcountry.
Q: How did African Americans create spirituals?
A: They combined Christian themes with African rhythms and call-and-response singing to express hope, resistance, and secret messages.
Q: What impact did African music have on U.S. music?
A: It laid the foundation for gospel, blues, and later American genres through syncopation, improvisation, and performance styles.
Q: How did African Americans identify themselves in the 19th century?
A: They used terms like African, Negro, Colored, Afro-American, and later African American to reflect pride and political beliefs.
Q: What were Colored Conventions?
A: Political meetings held by African Americans to discuss civil rights, education, and collective identity.
Q: Why did some reject the term ‘African’ in the 1800s?
A: They wanted to emphasize their American identity in response to colonization efforts and exclusion from national life.
Q: What was Fort Mose?
A: A free Black settlement in Spanish Florida established in 1738, offering asylum to escaped enslaved people who converted to Catholicism.
Q: What caused the Stono Rebellion?
A: Enslaved Africans in South Carolina, inspired by promises of freedom in Spanish Florida, rebelled in 1739 under Jemmy.
Q: What were the results of the Stono Rebellion?
A: Dozens were killed, and South Carolina passed stricter slave codes to suppress future uprisings.
Q: What was the Haitian Revolution?
A: A successful revolt (1791–1804) by enslaved people in Saint-Domingue that established Haiti, the first Black republic in the Americas.
Q: How did the Haitian Revolution affect the U.S.?
A: It inspired slave revolts, increased fear among U.S. enslavers, and influenced the Louisiana Purchase by weakening France’s hold.
Q: Who were maroons in Haiti?
A: Escaped enslaved people who formed independent communities and led resistance during the Haitian Revolution.
Q: What long-term effects did the Haitian Revolution have?
A: It shaped Black political thought and became a symbol of Black freedom and resistance against oppression.
Q: What daily resistance tactics did enslaved people use?
A: They slowed work, broke tools, feigned illness, and escaped to resist slavery’s control.
Q: What was the German Coast Uprising?
A: A major 1811 revolt in Louisiana where Charles Deslondes led hundreds of enslaved people toward New Orleans before being stopped.
Q: What was the Creole revolt?
A: In 1841, Madison Washington led a shipboard mutiny and sailed to the Bahamas, freeing 130 enslaved people.
Q: How did religion inspire revolts?
A: Leaders like Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey used religious visions and scripture to justify rebellion.
Q: How did free Black communities organize in the North?
A: They formed mutual aid societies, schools, churches, and supported abolitionist literature and speakers.
Q: Who was Maria W. Stewart?
A: A pioneering Black female activist who published political essays and gave speeches advocating abolition and women’s rights.
Q: Why is Black women’s activism historically significant?
A: It highlighted intersections of race, gender, and class and laid the foundation for later civil and women’s rights movements.
Q: What were maroon communities?
A: Groups of escaped enslaved people who formed self-sustaining settlements in remote areas and preserved African cultures.
Q: Where did maroon societies form?
A: In swamps, mountains, and forests across the Americas, including Brazil (quilombos), Jamaica, and U.S. regions like the Great Dismal Swamp.
Q: What were maroon wars?
A: Armed conflicts between maroons and colonial forces to defend freedom, such as those led by Queen Nanny in Jamaica.
Q: How was slavery in Brazil different from the U.S.?
A: Brazil received more Africans, had greater manumission rates, and allowed more cultural retention through music and festivals.
Q: What is capoeira?
A: A martial art developed by enslaved Africans in Brazil combining combat, music, and dance.
Q: How did Brazil end slavery?
A: Gradually through manumissions and legal reforms, ending in 1888 with the emancipation of the remaining 1.5 million enslaved people.
Here’s Part 3 of the full Unit 2 flashcards:
Q: Who were the Black Seminoles?
A: African Americans who found refuge among the Seminole people and fought alongside them in wars against U.S. forces.
Q: How did slavery affect Black-Indigenous relations?
A: Slavery laws adopted by Indigenous nations hardened racial lines and reduced recognition of Black-Indigenous kinship.
Q: Who was John Horse?
A: A Black Seminole leader who fought for freedom and helped relocate his community to Mexico for safety.
Q: What did Black emigrationists believe?
A: They supported relocating to Africa or Latin America to escape U.S. racism and achieve Black self-determination.
Q: Who was Paul Cuffee?
A: A free Black sea captain who led the first group of African Americans to resettle in Sierra Leone in 1815.
Q: What did anti-emigrationists argue?
A: They believed African Americans had a right to stay and claim full citizenship in the U.S., rejecting ideas of exile.
Q: What did David Walker’s Appeal advocate?
A: It called for African Americans to resist slavery, by force if necessary, and exposed the hypocrisy of Christian enslavers.
Q: Who was Henry Highland Garnet?
A: An abolitionist who urged enslaved people to rise up against slavery and later supported Black emigration to Africa.
Q: How did radical resistance differ from moral suasion?
A: It promoted direct action and rebellion rather than relying solely on appeals to morality.
Q: What was the Underground Railroad?
A: A secret network of safe houses and guides that helped enslaved people escape to the North, Canada, and Mexico.
Q: Who was Harriet Tubman?
A: An escaped enslaved woman who returned South at least 19 times to lead others to freedom and also served as a spy during the Civil War.
Q: What laws targeted escapees?
A: The Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, which allowed capture and return of escapees even in free states.
Q: Why was photography important to Black leaders?
A: It allowed them to counter racist stereotypes and present themselves as dignified citizens worthy of rights.
Q: Who was Sojourner Truth?
A: An abolitionist who used her portrait photographs to support her speaking tours and promote racial justice.
Q: How did Bisa Butler honor Black history?
A: Through quilted portraits that blend African American traditions with historical symbolism, such as in “I Go to Prepare a Place for You.”
Q: How did enslaved women resist sexual violence?
A: Through self-defense, escape, abortifacients, and protecting their children from being born into slavery.
Q: What made women’s slave narratives unique?
A: They emphasized family, vulnerability, and sexual exploitation, contrasting with male narratives focused on autonomy and escape.
Q: Who was Harriet Jacobs?
A: Author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, who hid for seven years to escape her enslaver and protect her children.
Q: How did African Americans support the Union?
A: Men served as soldiers and laborers; women worked as nurses, cooks, and spies, often escaping slavery to do so.
Q: How many Black men fought in the Civil War?
A: Around 200,000, most of whom had been enslaved before the war.
Q: What discrimination did Black soldiers face?
A: Lower pay, harsher punishments, and risk of re-enslavement or execution if captured by Confederates.
Q: What is Juneteenth?
A: A celebration of June 19, 1865, when Union troops announced emancipation in Texas, marking the end of slavery in the U.S.
Q: What was General Order No. 3?
A: The military order delivered in Texas declaring all enslaved people free following the Civil War.
Q: Why are Freedom Day celebrations important?
A: They honor Black resilience, commemorate emancipation, and continue the legacy of resistance and cultural pride.