Slave Customs
The origin and homeland of many slave customs; the root of their culture
What is Africa?
This 1820 agreement kept the balance between free and slave states by drawing an invisible line down the 36°30' parallel
What is the Missouri Compromise?
Free blacks were not allowed to own these out of fear that they would be used against whites.
What are guns?
Slaves who ran away were chased down by these.
What are slave hunters and bloodhounds?
This group argued that slavery was morally wrong.
What are Abolitionists?
This type of wedding, without legal status, was common among slaves. The name comes from a unique act performed at the end of the wedding.
What is a broomstick wedding?
This law forced citizens to help catch runaway slaves.
What is the Fugitive Slave Act?
Since slaves were categorized as this and not as people in the eyes of the law, they were not allowed to sue or ask of rights.
What is property?
A common form of "passive resistance", slaves made their work inefficient by doing this .
What is sabotage? (breaking tools, working slowly, damaging crops)
The debate over slavery sometimes escalated to violence, as seen in this incident when one senator beat another with a metal-tipped cane.
What is the Brooks-Sumner incident?
Slaves used this to express sorrow, hope, and resistance while working the the fields or during free time
What are spirituals/songs?
This Congressional rule prevented discussion of slavery for years.
What is the Gag Rule?
Free blacks were required to carry these to prove their freedom.
What are freedom papers?
Learning to do this was illegal in many slave states, since it would allow slaves to more easily communicate and plan resistances.
What is reading and writing?
This Christian document was used both to condemn and justify slavery.
What is the Bible?
Slaves often worshipped in these to maintain a sense of faith and unity. Often times the focus of the teachings was different than in the white version.
Slave Churches
This 1831 event led to harsh crackdowns on slaves and free blacks in the South.
What is Nat Turner’s Rebellion?
Slaveholders often controlled slaves and prevented them from organizing through this strategy.
What are separation and propaganda?
This large-scale rebellion in 1831 terrified slaveholders.
What is Nat Turner’s Rebellion?
Abolitionists often used slave narratives and personal stories to show the horrors of the practice. This book by Harriet Beecher Stowe is a famous example of one.
What is Uncle Tom's Cabin?
These events allowed enslaved women to bond and pass down stories while still doing work.
What are quilting parties?
This 1850 deal admitted California as a free state but strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act.
What is the Compromise of 1850?
Disobedient slaves were sent to "boot camps" run by these individuals skilled in removing a slave's will to resist.
What are slave breakers?
Running away was dangerous but symbolized the ultimate freedom. Organizations such this assisted slaves in escape.
What is the Underground Railroad?
What are plantations? (cash-crop agriculture)