People
George Washington’s enslaved maid, she famously escaped in 1796 and lived the rest of her life in hiding.
Who is Ona Judge?
This Latin phrase made slavery hereditary through the mother’s status.
What is partus sequitur ventrem?
This transatlantic voyage forcibly carried Africans across the ocean into slavery.
What is the Middle Passage?
Known for its rice and indigo economy, this Southern port city had a high enslaved population.
What is Charleston?
This woman, born enslaved in North Carolina, authored Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Who is Harriet Jacobs?
This abolitionist and women’s rights advocate (may or may not have) declared, “Ain’t I a Woman?” at a convention in 1851.
Who is Sojourner Truth?
This federal law of 1850 forced officials and citizens in free states to return runaway slaves.
What is the Fugitive Slave Act?
These were enslaved Africans who escaped and formed independent communities.
What are maroons?
In this French- and Spanish-influenced city, plaçage relationships between white men and free women of color were common.
What is New Orleans?
Incidents was published using this pseudonym.
What is Linda Brent?
This woman successfully sued for her freedom in Massachusetts in 1781 under the state constitution.
Who is Mum Bett (Elizabeth Freeman)?
A petition or legal case in which enslaved people argued for their freedom in court.
What is a freedom suit (or petition)?
This labor system, common in rice plantations, allowed enslaved people to finish daily quotas and use remaining time as they wished.
What is the task system?
This Northern city, home to the Forten family, had a strong abolitionist presence and hosted the nation’s first anti-slavery society.
What is Philadelphia?
To resist the advances of her enslaver, Jacobs entered a relationship with this white lawyer and had two children with him.
Harriet Tubman’s nickname was this biblical title, after leading enslaved people to freedom.
What is "Moses"?
The 1705 slave code passed in this colony made slavery lifelong, hereditary, and race-based.
What is Virginia?
Enslaved people were sorted by value, with this term used for healthy, labor-ready individuals, and another for those deemed less desirable.
What are “prime” slaves and “refuse” slaves?
This arrangement in Louisiana allowed mixed-race women to form legal or semi-legal partnerships with elite white men.
What is plaçage?
Jacobs hid for nearly seven years in this cramped space above her grandmother’s house.
What is a garret (or crawl space/attic)?
In 1600, this free woman of African and Indigenous descent filed a legal deposition in Mexico before traveling to New Spain, declaring her right to travel freely as an unmarried woman of mixed race.
Who is Isabella de Olvera?
This French colonial law code from 1685 regulated religion, marriage, and slavery.
What is the Code Noir?
Before slavery expanded, this system bound Europeans to labor for 4–7 years in exchange for passage to the colonies.
What is indentured servitude?
Founded in 1565, this city in Spanish Florida offered freedom and land to enslaved Africans who escaped from English colonies, creating one of the earliest free Black communities in what would become the United States.
What is St. Augustine?
Jacobs wrote her book in part to expose this unique dimension of slavery.
What is sexual exploitation of girls?