History Inquizitive Ch. 11
Identify the statements that describe the Underground Railroad.
"Stations" on the Underground Railroad were hideouts maintained by abolitionists to help fugitive slaves. Harriet Tubman was the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was not a single, centralized system, but rather a series of interlocking local networks involving black and white abolitionists helping slaves reach safety.
The culture of slavery in the antebellum South was different from the culture of slavery in Brazil and the West Indies. Determine whether the statements below better describe antebellum slave culture in the United States or the patterns of slave-keeping in South America and the Caribbean.
Brazil or the West Indies: Slave rebellions were common and large-scale. Plantation owners in this society would occasionally free their slaves as reward for good work or in honor of rites of passage like marriage. Plantation owners tended not to live on their plantations. the antebellum South: Enslaved persons in this society had better living conditions and longer life expectancies. Slave rebellions were fairly rare. There were few free blacks in this society; those who were free had few rights.
Resistance to slavery occasionally moved beyond individual and group acts of defiance to outright rebellions. Match the rebellions to their corresponding events.
Denmark Vesey's conspiracy: The leader of this rebellion was accused of supposedly organizing a rebellion in South Carolina but was caught before it came to fruition. New Orleans: Some 500 men and women armed with sugarcane knives, axes, and guns marched toward the city, destroying property until they were stopped by the military. Nat Turner's Rebellion: This was the last large-scale slave rebellion in the South.
Identify the statements that describe Frederick Douglass's critique of slavery.
Douglass put forward a powerful critique of slavery by pointing out that the practice of slavery went against America's professed value of liberty. Douglass said that the enslaved had a better understanding of American values in their quest for freedom than slaveowners in their attempts to maintain slavery.
T/F: Slave revolts in the United States were much larger and more frequent than in Brazil and the West Indies.
False
After abolition in the North, slavery had become the "peculiar institution" of the South. Identify the statements that describe this "peculiar institution" in the antebellum American South.
In the South as a whole, slaves made up one-third of the total population, and in the cotton-producing states of the Lower South, around half. The slave economy in the South revolved around the region's monopoly on cotton, which was referred to as "white gold." The Old South was the largest and most powerful slave-holding society in the modern world.
What can be inferred about populations of free blacks in 1860, referring to the map?
Many free blacks lived along coastal areas. There were more free blacks in the Upper South than the Lower South. Some states in the Lower South had almost no free blacks.
Slave owners attempted to prevent slaves from learning about the larger world around them. How did slaves acquire knowledge of current events?
Many owners were unaware that slaves created neighborhood networks that transmitted news of local and national importance between plantations.
Identify the obstacles faced by slaves attempting to escape.
Often bonds between family members and friends were enough to deter slaves from leaving the plantation. Slaves did not receive formal education and as a result they had little or no sense of geography, making it difficult to determine where to go after escaping. There were regular slave patrols, law enforcement, and a legal system designed to ensure slaves did not escape from their masters.
Which of the following is true about slave populations in the South in 1860?
Slave populations were concentrated in areas with access to national markets.
Identify the following slave rebellions and revolts in the nineteenth-century Atlantic World.
Slave ship Creole: a ship seized by 135 slaves being transported from Norfolk to New Orleans; they changed its course to the British Bahamas where they were given refuge Slave ship Amistad: a celebrated incident in which fifty-three slaves took control of their ship and tried to redirect it to Africa Louisiana: an uprising that occurred on sugar plantations north of New Orleans; some 500 men and women marched on New Orleans shouting "Death or Freedom" Gabriel's Rebellion: The first of four major slave conspiracies in the beginning of the nineteenth century that was led by a literate blacksmith who planned a large slave rebellion around Richmond
Identify the statements that describe the Second Middle Passage.
Slave trading within the United States between 1820 and 1860 was a visible, established business. Many commercial districts in southern cities contained the offices of slave traders, complete with signs reading "Negro Sales" or "Negroes Bought Here." Virginia played a key role in the Second Middle Passage.
Gender roles for enslaved men and women differed markedly from those of free, white men and women. Identify the following statements that correctly describe how the nineteenth-century's "cult of domesticity" did not apply to slave women.
Slave women were expected to work in the fields with men. Since black men could not provide economically for their families, black women could not perform the complementary duties of homemaking.
Identify which of the following statements are true about what set the American practice of slavery apart from other slave-keeping practices, both ancient and modern.
Slavery in the American South was unique in that it was tied to large-scale agricultural output. Slavery in the American South was unique in that the differentiating factor between free and enslaved people was physical: skin color.
What facts does the map below illustrate about the size of slaveholdings in the South in 1860?
Some of the largest plantations were concentrated along the Mississippi River. In general, the average number of slaves per slaveholding was higher in South Carolina than in Tennessee.
Identify the statements that describe the Old South.
Southern railroads tended to be short lines designed to bring cotton to ports rather than integrate the South into a larger national network. In 1860, the South produced less than 10 percent of the nation's manufactured goods.
The table on the left illustrates how many slaves there were in the antebellum South. The table on the right indicates not population, but the relative proportions of yeoman farmers who owned fewer than twenty slaves per family, and the elite planters who owned more than 100. Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the information provided by these tables?
The elite planter class was a small proportion of antebellum society. The members of the elite planter class were outnumbered by their slaves on the plantation as well as in society at large. In the year 1850, there were almost ten times as many slaves in the South as there were slaveholders.
Identify the legal status and restrictions put on slaves in the American South.
Under the law, slaves were seen as property. It was illegal to teach a slave to read and write. Slaves could not testify in court against white persons, sign contracts, or acquire property.
Slavery in the American South and the West Indies differed considerably. Identify the demographic differences in slavery in these regions.
West indies: The number of male slaves outnumbered the female slaves. American South: The number of male and female slaves were about the same. Marriage among slaves in this region was much more common, leading to a greater possibility of creating family life.
Identify the justifications used by white Americans for the practice of slavery.
blatant racism Slavery is the best condition for all labor. Christianity
The most widespread expression of hostility to slavery as an institution was "day-to-day resistance" or "silent sabotage." Identify examples of the forms of "day-to-day resistance" that the slaves performed.
breaking tools, doing poor work, abusing animals. leaving gates open and removing rails from fences.
An estimated 75 percent of enslaved women and 90 percent of enslaved men worked in the fields of the American South. The organization of their labor varied, but two main organizations were the task system and the gang system. Match each statement below to the type of labor organization it describes.
task labor Slaves were given a series of daily jobs to be done at their own pace. common on plantations producing rice along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia gang labor Groups of slaves were supervised as they did their work. This system of field work was known to be more violent than the other. common on plantations in southern Louisiana where sugarcane was cultivated
Slaveowners employed a variety of means in their attempts to maintain order and discipline among their human property and persuade them to labor productively. Identify the methods used to control slaves and force them to work for their masters.
whipping slaves and other physical punishments. the threat of sale. prohibiting relations between house servants and field hands to prevent collaboration against the master.
