Unit 2: Why Africans?
Af Am History/2013
Mr. T. Williams /Rm 355B
Mr. T. Williams
Vocabulary and reading quiz 1/28
African American History
In class essay 2/4
Unit 2: Why did Africans become the dominant labor force in Colonial North America?
Monday 1/21
Tuesday 1/22
Wednesday 1/23
In Class:
Thursday 1/24
In Class:
Friday 1/25
In Class:
In Class:
MLK Day
Mr. Williams out today
Homework:
Read “European Exploration And
Colonization” and answer the
reading checks. Due tomorrow
Monday 1/28
In Class:
Vocabulary Quiz Today/
Africans in the Chesapeake
(disc. cont’d)
HW: Review primary source
documents and study for the
vocabulary quiz tomorrow
Tuesday 1/29
In Class:
-Why Africans?/ Identify Push
and Pull factors
-begin document analysis
HW: Review all the documents
and take preliminary notes in the
margins.
What forces spurred the
growth of the Atlantic
Slave Trade?
HW: Read “From Capture
to Destination”
Wednesday 1/30
In Class:
Why Africans?/ continue
document analysis
HW: continue analyzing
the sources—pay attention
to similarities and
differences, and categorize
the documents accordingly
The Middle Passage
Africans in the Chesapeake
HW: Read “Tobacco
Slaves…” Pay close attention
to the author’s discussion
about the status and identity
of the first Africans. (select 23 passages that resonate w/
you & explain why)
Thursday 1/31
In Class:
Why Africans?/ finish
document analysis
HW: continue to analyze the
sources, and begin ranking
them in the order of
importance
Things you should know at the end of the unit:
1. I can explain the links between early European exploration and the development of the slave trade.
2. I can explain the differences between European and African slavery.
3. I can explain the route to slavery in the Americas for an African
4. I can discuss the early status of blacks and early systems of labor, other than slavery, in the British colonies
5. I can analyze the reasons for, and the development of, a system of chattel slaver
HW: Study for vocabulary and
reading quiz on Monday
Friday 2/1
In Class:
History Lab
Thesis writing/ outline clinic
Why Africans?
HW: finish your “Why
Africans” outline (typed 12 pt.
font )
Summary: Black People in Colonial North America
Summary
Early settlers in North America included a wide variety of ethnic groups, including Native Americans, Europeans, and
Africans. The earliest Africans probably arrived in 1526 with Spanish explorers. In North America, the British, not the Spanish, came
to dominate the area and their policies governed relationships between blacks and whites. Until the late 1600s, the British treated
people of African descent much like their indentured servants. Blacks in this early period could obtain their freedom, own property,
and had legal rights. By the mid 1600s, however, the British colonies had begun to harden the legal status of blacks, often making
their term of service for life. Legal changes by 1700 reduced slaves to chattel, or personal property. They lost almost all of their basic
social and legal rights as humans. Different regions of the country saw many distinctions in the practice of slavery however.
Compared to slaves in the Chesapeake, for example, slaves in the Carolinas outnumbered whites and faced the harshest legal codes.
However, because their white masters were frequently absent, Carolina slaves also worked with a great deal of independence from
white authority.
Despite many of the horrors and injustices of life under slavery, African Americans maintained and preserved many aspects of
their African culture, including music, folklore, building styles, and clothing. Even when they converted to Christianity during the
Great Awakening, African Americans developed separate churches to maintain a distinctive African element to their religion. In
addition to maintaining their own African culture, slaves heavily influenced white life, from speaking mannerisms to building styles to
food. Resistance and rebellion played a significant part in the day-to-day lives of many slaves. Although armed uprisings like the
Stono Rebellion, the South Carolina Revolt, and the New York City Rebellion remained rare, slaves demonstrated their objections to
their situation by lying, stealing, destroying crops, breaking things, poisoning whites, and escaping.
Just as slavery varied across the South, it also varied in the North in British North America; it also varied by the colonial power
dominating different areas. More slaves in the North were isolated from other blacks and more worked in household jobs or skilled
trades. In addition, the harsh form of chattel slavery developed in British North America remained different from other European
nations.
LEARNING TARGETS
At the end of the unit you should be able to do the following.

I can summarize some of the important characteristics of West African Societies prior to the triangular trade.

I can describe and explain the triangular trade

I can identify and analyze the early status of blacks and early systems of labor, other than slavery, in the British colonies.

I can explain and analyze the reasons for, and the development of a system of chattel slavery in America by the early 1700.

I can analyze primary source documents and use them to construct a thesis statement.

I can use primary source documents to outline my answer to the unit question
Unit 2 Readings:
1. D. Hine “European Exploration and Colonization”
2. “Why Africans?” primary source documents
UNIT 2: VOCABULARY LIST
1. Indigenous peoples: Populations originating in an area or environment.
2. Indians: The diverse peoples called Indians as a result of Christopher Columbus’s
mistaken belief that in 1492 he had landed in the “Indies.”
3. Cahokia: The largest center of the Mississippian culture.
4. Negroes: A word used for black people, derived from the Spanish word for black.
5. Indentured servants: People who lost their freedom for a specified period of time,
either because they sold it or as punishment for debt or crime.
6. Chattel slavery: A system of slavery in which slaves were legal property on a level
with livestock.
7. House of Burgesses: Virginia’s governmental body empowered to enact legislation
for the colony.
8. Bacon’s rebellion: Failed rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon against Virginia’s
tobacco-planting elite.
9. Low country: The coastal plain of Carolina and Georgia.
10. Miscegenation: Interracial sexual contact.
11. Creolization: The process of cultural exchanges that led African parents to produce
African-American children.
12. Mulattoes: Individuals of mixed African and European ancestry.
13. Fictive kin relationships: Fictional relationships created by enslaved Africans
intended to help provide mutual support.
14. Great Awakening: Eighteenth-century religious revival that grew out of growing
dissatisfaction among white Americans with a deterministic and formalistic style of
Protestantism.
15. Gang system: System of collective agricultural labor that existed on most
plantations.
16. Slave codes: Laws governing the practice of slavery in a given region.
17. Assimilation: The adoption by a minority group of the customs and norms of the
majority culture.
18. Outliers: Escaped slaves who lived nearby their master’s estate.
19. Maroons: A word for escaped slaves derived from the Spanish word cimarron,
meaning wild.
20. Acculturation: The modification of a culture as the result of contact with another
culture
Mr. Williams/ African American History
Guidelines for Analyzing Document Based Questions (DBQ)
1. Read the directions
2. Review all of the documents and get a sense of what they are about.
3. Read the documents slowly. For each, use the document analysis chart to record:
a. What or who is the source? Is it primary or secondary?
b. What is the main idea (or main ideas) in the document?
4. Organize the documents into categories
5. Prioritize your reasons (What is the most important reason? What is second?)
6. Explain your priorities. Why is one reason more important than another?
7. Write thesis statement: This is the answer to the question.
© DBQ Project
Mr. Williams
African American History
UNIT: 2
Question: Why Africans ?
Source A : Anthony Johnson 1621-1670
In 1655 Anthony Johnson and his family sold their 250 acres and moved to Maryland, where they leased a 300—acre tract of
land. Anthony died five years later, in the spring of 1670; his wife Mary renegotiated the lease for another 99 years. That
same year a court in Virginia ruled that, because “he was a Negro and by consequence an alien,” the land owned by Johnson (in
Virginia) rightfully belonged to the Crown
Source B: Court Case in Virginia 1640
…involved the escape of three servants from Virginia to Maryland. One of the escapees was Dutch, another was Scot, and the
third---name John Punch---was of African descent. Following their capture and return to Virginia, a court ruled that all three
whipped, that the Scot and Dutchman have their terms of service extended for four years, and that Punch ‘being a
Negro…serves his said master…for his natural life.
Source C: Virginia 1662 ( Hening, Statutes at Large)
Whereas some doubts have [arisen] whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free, be
it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children born in this country shall be held bond or
free only according to the condition of the mother, and if any Christian shall commit fornication with a negro man or woman,
he or she so offending shall pay a fine
Source D: Virginia 1691 ( Hening’s Statutes at Large)
… it is hereby enacted, that for the time to come, whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free shall intermarry
with a negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman bond or free shall within three months after such marriage be banished and
removed from this dominion forever
Source E: Bacon versus Berkley/ Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
The immediate cause of Bacon’s Rebellion was a disagreement between him and the colony’s royal governor William Berkley
over Indian Policy. Bacon’s followers were mainly white indentured servants and former indentured servants who resented
the control exercised by the tobacco-planting elite over the colony’s resources and government. That Bacon appealed to black
slaves to join his rebellion indicates that poor white and black people still had a chance to unite against the master class
Source F: Maryland Addresses Status of Slaves (1664)
Be it enacted…that all negroes or other slaves already within the Province and all negroes to be imported into the Province
shall serve DURANTE VITA and all children born of any negro or other slaves shall be slaves as their fathers were for the term
of their lives. And forasmuch as diverse freeborn English women forgetful of their free condition and to disgrace of our nation
do intermarry with Negro slave will serve the master of such slave during the life of her husband.
Source G : Virginia General Assembly (1705)
All servants imported and brought into the country…who were not Christians in their native country…shall be accounted and
be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion…shall be held to be real estate.
Source H: Tobacco Production: Virginia and Maryland (1680-1762)
Colony
Virginia
Profit
3000 lbs.
Year
1680
Virginia
$4,541
6,000 lbs.
1758-1762
Maryland
$9,082
2,500 lbs.
1700-
*Maryland
$3,784 (per year)
3,500 lbs.
1705-
$5,000
Tobacco provided the colonial governments of Virginia and Maryland with one of their principal sources of revenue. A duty of
two shillings, or about 20 cents, was levied on each barrel of tobacco exported from those colonies.
Source I: Slave Population Of Virginia and Maryland, 1680-1790
Virginia
% of US
POP
Maryland
% of US
POP
1680
3,000
7%
1700
16,390
28%
1720
26,550
30%
1750
107,100
46%
1770
187,600
42%
1790
292,627
39%
1,611
3,227
11%
12,499
19%
43,450
31%
63,818
32%
103,036
32%
Source J: Genesis 9:25-27
"Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. He also said, 'Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! May
Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japeth live in the tents of Shem and may Canaan be
his slave'. "
Source K: Colonial Official (1670)
… abundant land discovered in the Americas was useless without sufficient labor to exploit it.
Source L: Rhode Island Elder 1660
An overruling Providence has been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of benighted heathens to enjoy the
blessings of a Gospel dispensation.
*Name:___________________________
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Date: 2/4/13
Why Africans? In class Essay Rubric
Introduction
Contains background information on the topic.
/15 pts.
Thesis statement that explains the direction of the essay (or
answers the question being asked).
Body
Contains strong topic sentences.
Use evidence from unit readings to support claims.
Analysis of evidence being used.
Conclusion
Reiterates main argument.
Contains a clincher sentence.
Total
/30 pts.
/5 pts.
/50 pts.