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How did the Crafts escape?

The Crafts, who left a plantation in Macon, Georgia, in 1848, escaped by passing the light-skinned Ellen off as a sickly young slave master traveling north to seek medical attention. Her husband played the role of the young invalid's faithful attendant. With Ellen swathed in bandages and pretending to be too ill to speak, the couple rode by train to Savannah, where they boarded a steamship bound for Philadelphia

North Star (Polaris)

A star, also known as Polaris, that always points north and was used by escaped slaves to navigate their way to freedom; Those who attempted to leave the Lower South faced a trek of hundreds of miles and had to navigate their way through vast expanses of strange territory without getting lost. Uneducated and for the most part illiterate, fugitive slaves had no maps and had to hide during the day and travel at night

Invisible Church

A term used to describe groups of African American slaves who met in secret for Christian worship

How did Henry "Box" Brown escape?

A year later, the enslaved tobacco factory worker Henry "Box" Brown made an equally daring escape from Richmond. With help from a sympathetic white shopkeeper, Brown had himself shipped to Philadelphia in a large wooden crate, which traveled by steamboat, rail, ferry, and delivery wagon before finally arriving at its destination twenty-seven hours later. Such escapes were well publicized, leaving white southerners ever more vigilant.

Denmark Vesey - what happened?

By 1820, with the help of several enslaved friends, Vesey had begun planning a rebellion. They spent more than a year recruiting other men. Armed with stolen guns and knives, they planned to raid Charleston's Meeting Street Arsenal and a nearby shop to gather additional weapons for their supporters, whom they expected to number in the thousands. Vesey was a lay preacher in Charleston's African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, and he reviewed the details of the plot at religious classes held in his home, in which he likened the planned rebellion to the delivery of the children of Israel from Egyptian slavery; Two Charlestown slaves snitched, and local authorities swiftly suppressed the uprising

Mary Ann Shadd

Despairing of African American prospects in the United States, she left her teaching job in New York City in 1851 and moved to Canada. In Windsor, Ontario, where African Americans had already formed a small community, she took another teaching job and soon also became cofounder and editor of the Provincial Freeman, a weekly black newspaper whose masthead announced its devotion "to anti-slavery, temperance, and general literature."

What was the ruling of the Dred Scott case?

Dred Scott was not a free man after having lived in a free territory and no African American was a citizen of the United States.

Who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin?

Harriet Beecher Stowe, who crafted a sentimental yet graphic depiction of slavery's devastating effects on families, building empathy with slavery's victims in order to increase support for abolition.

John Brown's Raid

In 1859, the militant abolitionist John Brown seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry. He planned to end slavery by massacring slave owners and freeing their slaves. He was captured and executed.

Why did blacks oppose the ACS?

It was viewed as a way to perpetuate slavery within the country. If there are no more free blacks in the country, slaves cannot be tempted to run and revolt

1850 Fugitive Slave Act

Made it a crime to help Runaway Slaves. Slave were not able to testify in court and commissioners were paid more $ if they found the salve Innocent. This angered many people & encouraged them to join the Slave holders. This act was part of the Compromise of 1850, which allowed CA to become a free state.

Abroad Marriages

Marriages between slaves who belonged to different owners and lived on different plantations

What and where did Nat Turner's Rebellion occur?

On the evening of August 21, 1831, he struck, accompanied by a small band of fellow slaves who shared his vision of "slay[ing] my enemies with their own weapons." Armed with axes and hatchets, Turner and his men began by murdering Turner's owner, Joseph Travis, and his family and stealing their small cache of guns in Virginia. They then moved from plantation to plantation freeing slaves; killing white men, women, and children; and gathering more weapons and recruits. Turner's force grew to more than 50 slaves and free blacks, who managed to kill 60 whites before a Virginia militia tracked them down two days later

Aftermath of Nat Turner's Rebellion

Turner's rebellion terrified whites across the South. Turner was soon rumored to have an army of 1,200 coconspirators located as far away as North Carolina. In Virginia, as one plantation mistress put it, fears of revolt were "agonizing." Virginia legislators were even willing to consider the abolition of slavery. Convinced that Turner's uprising was caused by the abolitionist agitation of men such as David Walker, Virginia's leaders instead revised the state's legal code to bar slaves and free blacks from preaching or even attending religious meetings without white supervision. Virginia legislators also targeted free blacks with a colonization bill, which allocated new funding to remove them, and a police bill that denied free blacks trial by jury and made any free blacks convicted of a crime subject to sale and relocation.

Who led the Christiana Resistance?

William Parker

David Walker's Appeal

a free black from Boston who published his Appeal in 1829, advocating a black rebellion to crush slavery. The purpose of Walker's Appeal was to remind his people that they were Americans and should be treated fairly.

Who is Nat Turner?

a pious young man who spent much of his spare time praying and fasting. He experienced powerful religious visions, which eventually convinced him that "the great day of judgment" was at hand

Underground Railroad

a system of secret routes used by escaping slaves to reach freedom in the North or in Canada

moral suasion

aimed to convince the white majority that slavery and the oppression of free blacks were immoral, offensive to God, and contrary to the nation's ideals.

Vigilance Committees

an aboveground arm of the underground railroad, assisted arriving fugitives by providing temporary shelter, food, clothing, and sometimes legal assistance and jobs.

Why was the invisible church important?

it educated slaves and gave them a chance/sense of hope; Slave Christianity stressed the equality of all men under God, drawing on the Bible as inspiration for spirituals that expressed slaves' own humanity, capacity for freedom, and hope of justice for an oppressed people. Slaves also embraced scriptural stories that held out the promise of liberation under a just God.

Personal Liberty Laws

pre-Civil War laws passed by Northern state governments to counteract the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Acts and to protect escaped slaves and free blacks settled in the North, by giving them the right to a jury trial.

Christiana Resistance - what happened?

refused to allow a U.S. marshal and a party of Maryland slaveholders led by Edward Gorsuch to search the Parker home for recent fugitives from Gorsuch's plantation; Eliza sounded a large dinner horn, summoning more than seventy-five local supporters. In the fight that followed, Gorsuch was killed and his son wounded. The Parkers and the other fugitive slaves they were hiding escaped to Canada, but in the wake of what became known as the Christiana Resistance, thirty-five blacks and three white Quakers were arrested for treason and conspiracy under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Their cause attracted nationwide attention. Support came from as far away as Columbus, Ohio, where a meeting of free blacks adopted a resolution praising "the victorious heroes at the battle of Christiana."32 Pennsylvania congressman Thaddeus Stevens assisted in their defense, and eventually the charges were dropped.

Aftermath of Denmark Vesey's Rebellion

white South Carolinians moved quickly to limit the mobility and autonomy of their slaves. State officials banned slaves from hiring themselves out, and they forbade free blacks to hire slaves. The City of Charleston took the additional precaution of hiring a permanent force of 150 guardsmen to patrol the city around the clock. Any slave caught on the street after 9 p.m. without a written pass could be arrested and whipped or, worse, assigned to walk on a prison treadmill installed at the Charleston jail in 1823. The treadmill consisted of a wheel with steps, which was propelled by a group of manacled slaves, who climbed the rotating steps under the supervision of a driver brandishing a cat-o'-nine-tails. The mill was used to grind corn sold to offset the jail's daily expenses, but even when there was no grain to grind, prisoners could be assigned to hard labor on the treadmill. Bitterly aware that Vesey and most of his key collaborators could read and write, South Carolina officials reinforced existing laws against teaching slaves to read, and the state legislature adopted new legislation forbidding free black education. In the fall of 1822, municipal authorities also razed the AME church where Vesey had preached, although they could find no evidence that church leaders had participated in the plot.

Examples of everyday resistance

· Theft · Slaves also feigned illness to avoid unpleasant work assignments. · Slaves also defied their owners by running away and hiding to avoid punishment or other harsh measures. Mostly temporary, such escapes were often propelled by despair and fear rather than being carefully planned. · Truant: A slave who ran away for a limited period of time to visit loved ones; attend religious meetings or other social events; or escape punishment, abusive treatment, or undesirable work assignments. · Lying out: A form of resistance in which slaves hid near their home plantations, often to escape undesirable work assignments or abusive treatment by their owners.