African American Studies 100

Missouri Compromise

"Compromise of 1820" over the issue of slavery in Missouri. It was decided Missouri entered as a slave state and Maine entered as a free state and all states North of the 36th parallel were free states and all South were slave states.

Harriett Beecher Stowe

"The little woman who wrote the book that made this great war" In reaction to the fugitive slave laws she wrote uncle toms cabin which changed many people's opinions about blacks

Nat Turner

(1800-1831) American slave leader, he claimed that divine inspiration had led him to end the slavery system. Called Nat Turner's Rebellion, the slave revolt was the most violent one in U.S. history; he was tried, convicted, and executed.

Frederick Douglas

(1817-1895) American abolitionist and writer, he escaped slavery and became a leading African American spokesman and writer. He published his biography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and founded the abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.

Fugitive Slave Law 1793

-allowed owners and their hired slaves catchers to seize suspected runaways and return them to bondag

14th amendment

1) Citizenship for African Americans, 2) Repeal of 3/5 Compromise, 3) Denial of former confederate officials from holding national or state office, 4) Repudiate (reject) confederate debts

lucretia mott

A Quaker who attended an anti-slavery convention in 1840 and her party of women was not recognized. She and Stanton called the first women's right convention in New York in 1848

Thaddeus Stevens (Radical)

A Radical Republican who believed in harsh punishments for the South. Leader of the Radical Republicans in Congress.

Dred Scott

A black slave, had lived with his master for 5 years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Backed by interested abolitionists, he sued for freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The ruling on the case was that He was a black slave and not a citizen, so he had no rights.

Uncles Tom's Cabin

A book about slavery that increased the differences between north and south

Anthony Burns

A fugitive slave arrested in Boston in 1854, abolitionist killed a deputy marshal while trying to free him—he was eventually returned to Virginia

Preston Brooks

A hot tempered Congressman of South Carolina took vengeance in his own hands. He beat Sumner with a cane until he was restrained by other Senators. He later resigned from his position, but was soon reelected.

Emancipation Proclamation

A law issued by Lincoln freeing the slaves in the confederate states. This made the civil war a moral war to end slavery.

Charles Sumner (Radical)

A leader of the Radical republicans along with Thaddeus Stevens. He was from Massachusetts and was in the senate. His two main goals were breaking the power of wealthy planters and ensuring that freedmen could vote

Charles Finney

A leading evangelist of the Second Great Awakening, he preached that each person had capacity for spiritual rebirth and salvation and that through individual effort could be saved. His concept of "utility of benevolence" proposed the reformation of society as well as of individuals.

Denmark Vesey

A mulatto who inspired a group of slaves to seize Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, but one of them betrayed him and he and his thirty-seven followers were hanged before the revolt started.

Bleeding Kansas

A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.

Second Great Awakening

A series of religious revivals starting in 1801; stressed a religious philosophy of salvation through good deeds and tolerance for all Protestant sects

Sharecropping

A system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on the land.

13th amendment

Abolition of slavery

Marcus Garvey

African American leader during the 1920s who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and advocated mass migration of African Americans back to Africa. Was deported to Jamaica in 1927.

Compromise of 1850

Agreement designed to ease tensions caused by the expansion of slavery into western territories

Richard Allen

An African American preacher who helped start the free African society and the African Methodist Episcopal church

The Liberator

An anti-slavery newspaper written by William Lloyd Garrison. It drew attention to abolition, both positive and negative, causing a war of words between supporters of slavery and those opposed.

The North Star

Antislavery newspaper created by Frederick Douglass. Motto was "Right is of no Sex—Truth is of no Color—God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."

Roger Taney

As chief justice, he wrote the important decision in the Dred Scott case, upholding police power of states and asserting the principle of social responsibility of private property. He was Southern and upheld the fugitive slave laws.

manifest destiny

Belief that the US was destined to stretch across the continent; idealistic, sent by God, not for economic or territorial reasons

David Walker

Black abolitionist who bluntly portrayed the oppression suffered by black people

15th amendment

Citizens cannot be denied the right to vote because of race, color , or precious condition of servitude

Harriett Tubman

Ex-slave who guided hundreds of slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad. also worked as a nurse and spy during the Civil War.

Jupiter Hammon

First African American poet. 18th century. Remained a slave all his life in New York, thought to be a preacher because of his religious themes. Can be compared to other black intellectuals of the period, including Cuffee and Banneker.

3/5 compromise

For ever 5 slaves 3 get counted as people and 3/5 would be taxed

Elijah Lovejoy

Former Presbyterian minister; established a reform paper: St. Louis Observer; moved to Alton, IL. (Alton Observer); against slavery and injustices inflicted against blacks; is a martyr for the anti-slavery movement for he was killed by a mob in 1835.

American Anti-slavery Society

Founded in 1833 by William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists. Garrison burned the Constitution as a proslavery document. Argued for "no Union with slaveholders" until they repented for their sins by freeing their slaves.

Anthony Benezet

French-born American abolitionist and educator who was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the early American abolitionists, founded one of the world's first anti-slavery societies.

Personal Liberty Laws

Laws passed by Northern states forbidding the imprisonment of escaped slaves

black laws

Laws passed in states of the Old Northwest during the early nineteenth century banning or restricting black settlement and limiting the rights of black residents

Popular Sovereignty

Notion that the people of a territory should determine if they want to be a slave state or a free state.

Freedman's Bureau

Passed on March 3, 1865, by Congress to aid former slaves through education, health care, and employment, it became a key agency during Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South.

Radical Republicans

Political party that favored harsh punishment of Southern states after civil war. Sought to change racial and cultural attitudes of the south

William Lloyd Garrison

Radical abolitionist believed slavery must be viewed from perspective of blacks; demanded immediate emancipation of slaves w/o compensation to slave owners; full citizenship rights

Great Awakening

Religious revival in the American colonies of the eighteenth century during which a number of new Protestant churches were established.

Union Leagues

Republican party organizations in northern cities that demanded "the right of universal suffrage" for "all loyal men, without distinction of color."

Davids Walker's Appeal

Response to a conservative brand of anti-slave reform

Absalom Jones

Separate churches. Born into slavery. founded free african society. he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent black denomination in the United States. He opened his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Jim Crow

Series of anti-black laws that were state/local enforcing racial segregation in the southern states. Enacted after the reconstruction period.

Dred Scott vs. Sanford

Supreme Court that ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court

Freedoms Journal

The first African-American newspaper was ______, published initially in 1827 by John B. Russwurum and the Revernd Samual Cornish.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

This Act set up Kansas and Nebraska as states. Each state would use popular sovereignty to decide what to do about slavery. People who were pro-slavery and antislavery moved to Kansas, but some antislavery settlers were against the Act. This began guerrilla warfare.

Sojourner Truth

United States abolitionist and feminist who was freed from slavery and became a leading advocate of the abolition of slavery and for the rights of women (1797-1883)

Black Convention

Where black people would come together address concerns free and enslaved people this gave black people identity

John Jones

abolitionist who help abolish slavery in the north

Henry Highland Garnet

an African American abolitionist and orator. An advocate of militant abolitionism, Garnet was a prominent member of the abolition movement that led against moral suasion toward more political action. Renowned for his skills as a public speaker, he urged blacks to take action and claim their own destinies. first black minister to preach to the United States House of Representatives.

John Brown

anti-slavery advocate who believed that God had called upon him to abolish slavery. . Abolitionist who was hanged after leading an unsuccessful raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (1800-1858)

James Forten

black abolitionist; helped finance the liberator; strongly opposed ACS; American Anti-Slavery Society Members

Benevolent Empire

collection of missionary and reform societies that sought to stamp out social evils in american society in the 1820s and 1830s

William and Ellen Craft

disguised themselves as a white man(Ellen) and "his slave" traveling for medical treatment to Boston. They were protected by abolitionists, and they sailed to England safely

Paul Cuffe

first black abolitionists that we know about. He was born a free black, in Massachusetts Bay in 1759. He favored the return of blacks to Africa. Cuffe saw colonization as a way for black people to free themselves from pre-juice and mistreatment by the white majority. He transported 38 Black volunteers to west Africa in 1815 with his own money.

The Rochester Convention

first women's rights convention, t

African Methodist Episcopal Church

founded by Richard Allen; AME church in 1816 as the first independent black-run Protestant church in the United States. Was active in the promotion of abolition and the founding of educational institutions for free blacks.

Margaret Garner

her and her family escaped slavery, former slave owner found her, she killed her 2 year old daughter knowing the owner was coming for her.

Fugitive Slave Law 1850

only federal agents can reclaim fugitives and only federal commissioners can hear cases; fugitive slaves had no right to jury trial, testimony; individual citizens had to help capture runaways

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

was an African-American abolitionist, suffragist, poet and author. She was also active in other types of social reform and was a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which advocated the federal government taking a role in progressive reform