Propaganda
The 1840 US Census claimed that free Blacks were insane and enslaved Blacks were sane.
What is true?
These are false statistics that the US Census made up.
Aristotle believed in human hierarchy with Greeks at the top and everyone else below them.
What is true?
This is scientific racism; Puritans copied his idea and put themselves at the top of it.
Senator John C. Calhoun was called "the emcee for slavery" because he fought so hard against it.
What is false?
John was considered the emcee for slavery because he wanted it so much.
Uncle Tom's Cabin was based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's own experience as a slave.
What is false?
Stowe was a White woman who had never been enslaved.
Gomes Eanes de Zurara was a slave himself before becoming a writer.
What is false?
Zurara was a commander in Prince Henry's military who wrote to defend slavery.
Zurara wrote his book because he genuinely wanted to help African people learn about Christianity.
What is false?
Zurara wrote the book to make money.
Samuel Morton's skull measurements were accurate and proved White people had bigger brains.
What is false?
Samuel's measurements were fake/biased;brain size doesn't determine intelligence anyway.
Benjamin Rush argued that Black people were born savages but slavery made them civilized.
What is false?
Rush argued that slavery made people savages. Both ideas are racist.
In the book, Eva's father successfully frees Tom before he dies.
What is false?
Eva's father promised to free Tom, but died before he could.
Cotton Mather graduated from Harvard at age 11, the youngest student ever.
What is false?
Cotton was in college at 11; he graduated later.
George Best proved that cold weather made people's skin darker by studying people in Canada.
What is false?
Best noticed that people in cold places were darker than people in hot areas, which proved Climate Theory is wrong; he believed in Curse Theory instead.
Ancient Egyptians wrote in their own history books that they were White with Black slaves.
What is false?
Not even Egyptians themselves had any evidence of this; Samuel made it up.
William Lloyd Garrison believed in gradual freedom throughout his entire career.
What is false?
Garrison changed his mind and wanted immediate freedom by the time he started his newspaper, The Liberator.
Frederick Douglass praised Uncle Tom's Cabin but also assured White people that Black people loved civilization.
What is true?
Douglass supported it from an assimilationist angle because he said Black people would never go back to "uncivilized" Africa.
Thomas Jefferson freed all his slaves when he died because he believed slavery was wrong.
What is false?
Jefferson kept about 200 slaves and they were all sold after his death to pay his debts.
The American Colonization Society successfully convinced most freed Black people to move back to Africa.
What is false?
Black people refused to go because America was built by them.
John Locke believed that White people had the purest, most perfect minds.
What is true?
John Locke believed this.
David Walker wrote a pamphlet arguing that Black people were NOT made to serve White people.
What is true?
Walker's pamphlet was called An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World.
Uncle Tom's Cabin became more popular than the Bible in the 1850s.
What is false?
The book doesn't say this; it just says it was the biggest book of its time.
Phillis Wheatley was published in America right after she passed her test in 1772.
What is false?
No American publisher would print her work; she had to be published in Britain.
Cotton Mather apologized for his role in the Salem witch trials after they ended.
What is false?
Cotton never stopped defending the witch trials.
Richard Baxter claimed there were "voluntary slaves" who WANTED to be enslaved so they could be baptized.
What is true?
Baxter was nuts.
The Mennonites' 1688 petition compared racism against Black people to religious persecution they faced.
What is true?
The Mennonites said both types of oppression were wrong.
The villain Simon Legree kills Tom because Tom refuses to whip another slave.
What is true?
Legree tries to break Tom's faith and then has him killed.
Nat Turner's rebellion succeeded in freeing thousands of slaves across Virginia.
What is false?
Turner was eventually caught and hanged; the rebellion failed but scared slave owners. His skin was used to make souvenirs like purses.