Slavery
Abolition
Union
Confederacy
Lost Cause
100
When did enslaved African people first arrive in America?
In 1619, one year before the Pilgrims landed, an unnamed Dutch ship with a cargo of 20 Africans that had been stolen from a Spanish slave vessel was pushed by a storm to the Virginia coast. These twenty individuals were unloaded, paid for by the Virginia colonists, and given English "Christian" names, effectively beginning the dehumanizing practice of slavery in America.
100
What was the underground railroad?
A loose network of homes and hiding places used to smuggle escaped slaves out of the South. Usually these paths led up to Canada, others led down across the Mexican border.
100
Where were the first shots of the war fired?
Fort Sumter
The Fort lay off the coast of South Carolina near the city of Charleston. After the secession, both President Buchanan and the newly elected Lincoln refused to pull out Union troops. Charleston cannons kept resupply ships from docking. They finally fired on the Fort itself on April 12, 1861, killing two men and officially beginning the war.
100
What was the bloodiest battle of the war?
One of the first terrible battles was the Battle of Shiloh, in Tennessee, in which 20,000 were killed or wounded, totaling more than all the American wars to that point combined.
The battle of Antietam, in Maryland, was the single worst day in the history of the war. Close to 5,000 killed and over 20,000 wounded.
Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, was by far the worst battle of the war, with casualties numbering close to 50,000.
200
What invention made slavery more profitable, and helped justify its existence in the American South?
The cotton gin.
200
What African American slave claimed to have a religious experience that instructed him to murder whites in order to free slaves?
BONUS 100: What piece of literature was he accused of having read to inspire his actions.
Nat Turner
He and a small group of followers were able to kill fifty-five people before they themselves were captured and murdered themselves.
An abolitionist newspaper called The Liberator, although it was inconclusive whether he had ever seen it or not.
200
The election of which President was the last straw that caused the Confederate States to secede?
Who did the Confederate States elect as their President instead?
Abraham Lincoln, explicitly because they feared he and the Republican party would interfere with the "peculiar institution" of slavery.
Jefferson Davis was President of the Confederacy.
200
Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln and where did he do it?
John Wilkes Booth in a box seat at Ford's Theatre, during a production of Our American Cousin.
300
In what way was the North equally complicit in the institution of slavery in America?
The North was the home to the industrial centers of the United States, meaning that the free labor of the slaves made the materials they produced cheaper and more abundant, making manufacturers in the North just as rich as the plantation owners in the South.
Due to this, many in the North looked the other way or even supported slavery, even if they lived in a state where African Americans could technically live "free". Many northerners directly benefited from the suffering and labor of African American slaves, meaning that slavery was never a "southern issue" but an American issue that every American must contend with.
300
What is the name of the escaped slave who made a big impact on the abolitionist movement as an eloquent speaker and writer.
Frederick Douglass
“I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.”
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
300
Who was the central (or best remembered) General of the Union Army and what was his character?
Ulysses S. Grant
While often criticized during and after the war, and even having himself replaced at one point early in the war, Grant is now remembered as an even-handed tactician, who valued the lives of his troops, and took a more methodical, thought out approach to war.
Later, as President of the United States he sought to protect the rights of African and Native Americans, again at the expense of much criticism during his time.
300
Who was the central (or best remembered) General of the Confederate Army and what was his character?
General Robert E. Lee
Known throughout the war for his daring and often brilliant maneuvers, Lee's memory was often characterized by a fanatical, almost cult like worship of his supposed genius and upstanding character as a man and leader. Many of the stories and ideas that surround him were exaggerated or even fabricated in order to make him, and those powerful people associated with him, seem more capable.
Over the next hundred years after the war there would be many commemorative statues, memorials, and buildings named after the man. Only in the last decade have some of these been actively removed or replaced, angering many who see him as a mythic figure of a lost golden time of Southern power.
400
What are some ways in which African Americans suffered as slaves?
-Slave ships would stack the bodies of African people like they were cargo, counting on the malnutrition and the use of weapons to keep them compliant with a relatively small crew of slavers.
-African culture would be suppressed with threats, punishment, and actively replacing it with European names, clothes, and customs.
-Slaves would be beaten severely, whipped, branded, have their feet or hands cut off, tortured, and more often than admitted, raped and sexually abused.
-Slaves would have their children or wives taken from them without remorse, families broken up in the name of easy profit or even as a means of punishment for rebellious slaves.
-Punishments would be even more severe for those slaves that attempted to run away and were caught.
-Slave owners would actively read passages from the Bible, proclaiming a popular message that God had ordained white people as superior to black, that He had approved of the status quo, and that any challenge to this racist ideology was morally wrong, and justified the slave-holder's "righteous" response to mete out severe punishment.
400
What is the name of unofficial "President" of the underground railroad?
Levi Coffin
His house was known as the "Grand Central Station" and over a twenty year period he helped over 2000 people escape the clutches of slavery.
400
What four slave states remained in the Union throughout the war?
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri
400
How did the Union disagree over what Reconstruction should look like?
Lincoln and other moderates wanted as smooth a transition as possible in bringing the Confederate States back into the Union. Lincoln wanted there to be voting process, where if ten percent voted for readmission, they would be received, but high ranking officers and officials of the Confederacy would be excluded from future governmental positions.
More radical Republicans desired heavy penalties for the rebels, requiring strict oaths, and forcing the former Confederate states to pay back war debts, keeping the South perpetually weak financially for the foreseeable future.
500
Was slavery in America always an institution of racially based chattel slavery?
Chattel Slavery - People are considered property and legally bound to an owner, with no rights for themselves as human beings, meaning that their actions, the production and value of their efforts, their families, and even their children are exclusively and legally owned by slaveholders.
The Story of American Slavery Documentary we watched told the story of Anthony Johnson, an African that was taken captive and sold into slavery. According to the earliest British rules, a slave was not a slave for life, but would gain freedom after a certain number of years, like an indentured servant, but without the choice to serve in the first place. Johnson served out his term and was given his freedom and was able to purchase his own plantation.
Within a few generations though, laws began to be put in place that made it clear that slavery in America was defined by racial lines, and soon the definition of being African American was to be automatically a slave by birth. Quickly the idea of "free blacks" was squashed and replaced with a racist ideology of white supremacy and superiority.
500
What was the Emancipation Proclamation and what did it accomplish in the war?
A declaration that all African American people would be emancipated or made free, officially abolishing the practice of chattel slavery in America.
Abraham Lincoln did not at first believe he had the constitutional power to abolish slavery and his primary concern was with reclaiming the seceded states.
By 1863, it was clear that the tired Union troops needed the morale boost of a philosophy or ideal to fight for. By making the Emancipation Proclamation he not only made it clear what the war was being fought over, it ensured that European countries would not get involved with the Confederacy, and opened the door for thousands of African Americans to join the armed forces against the Confederacy.
500
What Union General was reluctant to move his troops south, was eventually replaced for his inaction, then brought back, then replaced again. He openly mocked Lincoln's intelligence and would later run against him in the 1864 Presidential election.
General George McClellan
Lincoln allegedly once wrote to him, "If you don't want to use the Army, I should like to borrow it for a while."
500
Name five of the original seven states that seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America.
South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.
500
Describe five ideas that the myth of the Lost Cause perpetuates, even to this day.
1) That the confederacy seceded over the need to protect individual liberties from the overbearing power of the federal government, instead of its fear of losing the institution of slavery.
2) That slavery wasn't that bad to begin with, that slaves were "protected" from the poor wages of factory work in the north and had positive happy lives. Further, this idea continues to perpetuate the idea that African Americans are inferior or childlike, needing white people to watch over and control them.
3) That the South only lost because of the North's greater industrial complex and resources, ignoring the fact that as slaves were emancipated and joined the Northern cause, the South was undone by its dependence on slavery.
4) Confederate soldiers, General Robert E Lee, and President Jefferson Davis were heroic figures who should be honored and celebrated as figures of what a Southern gentleman should be.
5) Northern states need to allow this kind of thinking to continue in order to perpetuate peace between the North and the South, despite the overt racist attitudes that it breeds.