Elementary African-American History

by Jonathan D. Kantrowitz and Kathi Godiksen Edited by Patricia F. Braccio and Sarah M. Williams

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To the Students ...... iv Chapter 1 The First African Americans and the Beginnings of Slavery...... 1 Chapter 2 Slavery in North America...... 11 Chapter 3 From Colonies to Country ...... 22 Chapter 4 Mum Bett Sues for Freedom, David Walker Writes an Appeal...... 31 Chapter 5 The Underground Railroad and the Missouri Compromise...... 40 Chapter 6 African-American Churches ...... 49 Chapter 7 Crossing International Borders, The Fugitive Slave Act ...... 54 Chapter 8 The Liberator, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, The Amistad...... 62 Chapter 9 Boston and the Fugitive Slave Act...... 69 Chapter 10 Abolitionists Working in the South ...... 77 Chapter 11 Frederick Douglass ...... 83 Chapter 12 Harriet Tubman ...... 91 Chapter 13 Uncle Tom’s Cabin...... 98 Chapter 14 John Brown, Dred Scott ...... 104 Chapter 15 African Americans in the Civil War...... 110 Chapter 16 Spies and Buffalo Soldiers ...... 118 Chapter 17 Jim Crow and Reconstruction ...... 127 Chapter 18 The Niagara Movement: Civil Rights for All ...... 134 Chapter 19 World War I ...... 140 Chapter 20 Jazz ...... 144 Chapter 21 The Black Renaissance...... 154 Chapter 22 Marian Anderson...... 161 Chapter 23 The Red-Tailed Angels of World War II...... 167 Chapter 24 Jackie Robinson ...... 173 Chapter 25 The Civil Rights Movement ...... 183 CHAPTER 4 Mum Bett Sues for Freedom, David Walker Writes an Appeal

We must and shall be free, I say, in spite of you. You may do your best to keep us in wretchedness and misery, to enrich you and your children, but God will deliver us from under you. And woe, woe, will be to you if we have to obtain our freedom by fighting. Throw away your fears and prejudices then, and enlighten us and treat us like men, and we will like you more than we do now hate you*, and tell us now no more about colonization, for America is as much our country, as it is yours.

You are not astonished at my saying we hate you, for if we are men we cannot but hate you, while you are treating us like dogs.

—David Walker, An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World

This statement from David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) shows that Africans were by no means resigned to being slaves. They hated their status and would fight to the death to gain their liberty. They had a strong argument on their side: The Americans had fought for their freedom from England. How could they say that it was all right to deny freedom to others?

“Mum Bett” Goes to Court In the 1740s, an African slave gave birth to a daughter in Claverack, New York. She named the child Elizabeth. When Elizabeth grew up, everyone called her “Mum Bett.” She worked as a house slave for Colonel John Ashley in Berkshire, Massachusetts.

Colonel Ashley belonged to a committee of Patriots. The committee often met at Ashley’s house to discuss how the colonies could declare themselves free from British rule. They spoke of the importance of personal liberty. They agreed that the colonies must have a voice in their own government. The believed that the colonists should not obey laws that they had no chance to vote on.

Mum Bett often waited at table during committee meetings. The men gathered there spoke freely in front of her. Mum Bett was smart and had no trouble understanding

The colonel’s wife, Hannah Ashley, was a vicious woman. One day when she was in a rage, she snatched a heated coal shovel from the fire and swung it at Mum Bett’s sister. Mum Bett blocked the blow. She would carry the scars of the burn on her arm for the rest of her life.

Mum Bett decided that she had had enough. She decided to ask Theodore Sedgwick’s advice. Sedgwick was a lawyer, a committee member whom she had seen many times in the Ashleys’ house. Mum Bett brought her case before him. She quoted from the committee Mum Bett (born Elizabeth) fought for the idea that if Massachusetts state law said that all members’ conversations about liberty. She people are free and equal, she should be free. told Sedgwick that Massachusetts state laws should apply to her just as they did to any white person. If the state law said that all people were free and equal, then she wanted to use that law to gain her freedom.

The verdict for the Mum Bett trial.

© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 32 1. According to David Walker’s Appeal, what was the strongest argument the Africans had against their slave status in the U.S.? a. It was unconstitutional to keep slaves. b. The religious edicts of the colonies forbade slavery. c. The Americans had fought for their freedom from England and so couldn’t justify denying freedom to others. d. Machinery and industrialization had reduced the need for a manual labor force.

2. With which statement about Mum Bett’s court case would the author agree? a. Mum Bett was the first slave to sue for her freedom. b. Mum Bett was the first slave to argue that slavery itself was illegal under the state constitution. c. Mum Bett was the only female slave courageous enough to fight for her own freedom. d. Mum Bett’s decision to go to court created a tremendous amount of trouble and many setbacks for other slaves.

3. Based on what you have read, it is fair to say that David Walker was influenced by Denmark Vesey mainly because a. Vesey was also a free African. b. Vesey planned an aggressive revolt. c. they were childhood friends. d. Vesey had been influenced by religious history and stories from the Bible.

4. Which of these statements represents the belief of many southern colonists? a. Africans were inferior because they looked very different from whites, spoke languages whites could not understand, and did not share the same religious beliefs. b. Africans were equal because they were also people created by God and endowed with rights of freedom. c. Africans were inferior because they were unintelligent and uneducated. d. Africans should be given an opportunity to prove their strengths and their potential benefits to the union.

© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 36 5. A slave woman named Mum Bett successfully gained her own freedom. What did she do? Why was her approach successful? What can you tell about her as a person as a result of reading her story?

6. David Walker believed in freedom for all people. He was very purposeful and clever in his attempts to convince others to agree with him. Explain what he did and what was most impressive to you about his approach.

Union soldiers and officers used the term “Black Dispatches” to refer to information they received from black spies in the Confederacy. The Union Army agreed that African Americans were the best and most accurate source of information about the enemy’s plans and activities. In 1862, Frederick Douglass wrote:

The true history of this war will show that the loyal army found no friends at the South so faithful, active, and daring in their efforts to sustain the government as the Negroes. Negroes have repeatedly threaded their way through the lines of the rebels exposing themselves to bullets to convey important information to the loyal army of the Potomac.

Black Americans behind Confederate lines were in an excellent position to learn important information. The Union Army recognized this very early in the war. Confederates also knew that their slaves might inform on them. General Robert E. Lee once commented, “The chief source of information to the enemy is through our Negroes.” Although they should have been wary of their slaves, many southerners were too racist for this. It is likely that these people could not believe that slaves could possibly be smart enough to be useful spies. They were also very used to being around slaves and were probably less cautious with their words as a result.

George Scott One of the first large-scale Civil War battles was the result of information provided by George Scott, a runaway slave. Scott escaped from a plantation near Yorktown, Virginia. He headed for Fort Monroe, where he knew there was a Union Army camp.

General Benjamin F. Butler commanded the troops at Fort Monroe. He interviewed Scott in detail. Scott was able to tell him about Confederate fortifications and troop movements. On his way to Fort Monroe, Scott had seen Confederate forces building fortifications between Yorktown and the Fort Monroe.

Butler’s officers knew that they needed more details. Scott went with a Union officer on several scouting trips behind Confederate lines to find out what they could. On one of these missions, a Confederate soldier fired on them. The bullet went through the fabric of Scott’s jacket.

© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 118 Scott and the others learned enough to prove to Butler that Confederate forces were planning an attack on Newport News, Virginia. Butler was able to launch his own attack before the Confederates were ready. In spite of Scott’s good information, the Union lost the battle.

One of Pinkerton’s Operatives During peacetime, Allan Pinkerton ran a Chicago detective agency. When war came, the Union hired Pinkerton to provide spies and secret agents. Pinkerton’s group was very well organized. He had many informers. They included merchants who had business ties on both sides of the war. Other Pinkerton agents were Confederate deserters, prisoners of war, and former slaves. Each group provided valuable information. Pinkerton soon discovered that the former slaves were the most willing to cooperate and often had the most accurate knowledge.

John Scobell was the best known of the black Pinkerton agents. Scobell had been a slave in Mississippi. His owner had helped him to get an education and had later freed him. Scobell was quick-witted and a talented actor. He could easily take on the role of a cook, a laborer, or a peddler. He often worked with other Pinkerton agents. In the south, he sometimes played the role of another agent’s servant.

Scobell provided the Union Army with important information on Confederate troop morale and movements. He knew about the status of their supplies and their battle plans. When on a mission, Scobell would seek out leaders in the local black community. They kept him informed about local conditions and the coming and going of troops.

A Riverboat Spy While Scobell was roaming behind enemy lines between Washington and Richmond, another black American, W.H. Ringgold, was working on a riverboat on the York River in Virginia. Ringgold had been impressed into service. Impressment was a common practice throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the navies and merchant marines of both England and the U.S. Men were literally kidnapped and forced to take jobs on ships.

Ringgold spent six months on the river. His ship moved troops and supplies on the Virginia peninsula. When the ship was damaged by a storm, the crew traveled north. On reaching Baltimore, Ringgold sought out Union officials. They immediately sent him to Pinkerton in Washington.

In December 1861, Ringgold provided Pinkerton with details of Confederate defenses in Virginia. He knew locations of forts and artillery batteries, numbers of troops on the peninsula, and defenses on the York River. Ringgold’s information was the best General McClellan had received before the start of his Virginia campaign in March 1862.

119 © 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. Naval Intelligence Mary Touvestre worked in Norfolk, Virginia, as a housekeeper. Her employer was the engineer in charge of refitting the USS Merrimac. The Merrimac became the Virginia, the first Confederate ironclad warship. Mary listened when the engineer talked about his project. She realized the danger that this new ship would mean to the Union Navy. She stole a set of the plans for the ship and fled north. After a dangerous trip, she arrived in Washington and arranged a meeting with officials at the Department of the Navy.

Union officials listened carefully to Mary’s memories of what the engineer had said about the Virginia. They examined the stolen plans. They realized that they would have to speed up construction of their own ironclad, the Monitor.

By the time the Monitor was ready to fight the Virginia and protect the rest of the Union fleet, the Virginia had destroyed two Union frigates, the Congress and the Cumberland, and ran another, the Minnesota, to ground. If Mary Touvestre had not brought her information to the Union, the Virginia would have had several more weeks to destroy Union ships before the Monitor was completed. The Merrimac was by far one of the most impressive ironclad ships to fight in the Civil Robert Smalls’s Achievements War. Here the ship is portrayed as ramming a Union ship. Charleston, South Carolina, was one of only a few southern ports with railroad lines. Railroads were important because they could quickly carry huge quantities of supplies to Richmond and other key Confederate centers. Robert Smalls was pilot of the gunboat Planter. Confederates had seized the Planter and forced the black crew to work for them. Smalls organized other black crew members and recaptured the ship from the whites. He sailed the ship to the Union blockade, where he immediately surrendered his prize to the Union Navy.

Smalls supplied a great deal of important military information about the port. With Smalls’ information, U.S. Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont was able to seize Stono Inlet. His gunboats occupied Stono, blocking the South from using Charleston as a port. The area became an important base for U.S. military operations. Robert Smalls was regarded as a hero. Later, he became a U.S. congressman.

© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 120 Buffalo Soldiers During the Civil War, U.S. Army commanders were deeply impressed with the courage and fighting abilities of black soldiers. When the war ended, the U.S. Army decided that it should encourage more African Americans to serve. There was trouble with the Native Americans on the western frontier and the army needed more men.

The army first began admitting young black men to West Point, the military academy in New York. This school would train the young men to become officers. The army also recruited black soldiers for infantry and cavalry regiments to serve in the west. The 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments and the 24th and 25th Infantry were made up of black troops commanded by white officers.

Black soldiers made up 20% of the cavalry and about 15% of the infantry. They served on the western frontier until about 1900. The army clashed with a variety of Native American tribes. They included Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, Ute, and Apache.

Most of these western Native Americans had never seen Africans before. They nicknamed them “buffalo soldiers.” The texture of the Here are some “buffalo soldiers” off duty. Many used their Africans’ hair reminded them spare time to learn to read and write—activities that they of the tightly-curling short had been banned from when they were slaves. coat of the buffalo.

The 10th Cavalry arrived at Fort Larned in April 1867. Company A of the 10th remained there until 1869. Captain Nicholas Nolan, a recent Irish immigrant, commanded the 10th. Nolan became a career soldier who would serve in the dragoons, artillery, and cavalry. Like most western officers, Nolan was white. Only three black men graduated from West Point as officers with black regiments from West Point before 1900: Henry O. Flipper, John H. Alexander, and Charles Young.

At Fort Larned, the barracks had no ceiling. Many of the walls were not plastered. However, Commander Meridith Kidd was popular with the troops. Major Kidd left the post in 1868.

121 © 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 4. Concerning the topic of impressments, which of the following statements is false? a. Impressment was an involuntary service position. b. A person who was impressed was forced, against his will, to work on a ship. c. Impressment was not very common in the 18th and 19th centuries. d. A person who was impressed into the service was usually a victim of kidnapping.

5. Mary Touvestre was very helpful to the Union in the area of a. military protocol. b. battle strategy. c. underwater diplomacy. d. naval intelligence.

6. Why were the black Americans such a good resource to the Union during the war? Use specific details in your explanation.

© 2006 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 124 7. Choose either George Scott, Allan Pinkerton, or John Scobell. Then, explain the position that this person held and the role he played in the war.

8. Describe the two important steps taken by the government that made it easier for black Americans to participate in the military.