Audac ious freedom CRYPTOGRAM ACTIVITY
Created by: Hannah Wallace, Educational Programming Manager & Samantha Eusebio, Educational Programming Coordinator cryptogram directions A cryptogram is a type of puzzle that consists of a short piece of encrypted text. Each cryptogram in this booklet highlights a phrase or title from our Audacious Freedom exhibition. At the top of each page, there is a box that lists all the letters from A thru Z with an empty space below. Each of the letters has a corresponding number. Underneath that box there are dotted lines with hints to help you fill in the correct phrase. Each of the blanks has a number beneath. Fill in the letters that correspond to the numbers below the blanks to solve the answer.
**HINT** If you feel stuck on a puzzle, read the "About the Answer" page that comes after each puzzle to get a better sense of what the solution might be! This page will not give away the full answer, but will lead you in the right direction! 1 cryptogram one
2 about answer one
The following steps were taken to begin the process of manumitting (or freeing) enslaved Africans in Pennsylvania: • all enslaved persons born in Pennsylvania after the act was passed were required to remain in the service of their owners until the age of 28 years old. • all slave-owners were required to annually register, the names and ages of those enslaved in order to enforce manumission at age 28 and to keep track of those who had already been freed. If owners failed to register their enslaved, they would have to free them by default. • all runaways who have been missing for more than 5 years were proclaimed free. • all freed men could not be enslaved again. This excludes anyone staying less than 6 months in Pennsylvania. Some slaveowners (including President George Washington) took This act was passed on March 1st, 1780, as a means to slow and eventually advantage of this loophole by carefully not staying longer abolish slavery in Pennsylvania. It was the first act to end slavery to be than 6 months, leaving, and coming back. adopted in the United States.
Source: https://revolutionary-war.net 3 cryptogram two
4 about answer two
This Act was passed in 1793, revoked, and passed again in 1850. It decreed that owners of enslaved people and their “agents” had the right to search for escapees within the borders of free states. In the event they captured a suspected runaway, these hunters had to bring them before a judge and provide evidence proving the person was their property. If court officials were satisfied by their proof—which often took the form of a signed affidavit—the owner would be permitted to take custody of the enslaved person and return to their home state. The law also imposed a $500 penalty on any person who helped harbor or conceal escapees. The passage of these acts resulted in many free African Americans being illegally captured and sold into slavery. One famous case con- cerned Solomon Northup, a freeborn black musician who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841. Northup would spend 12 years enslaved in Louisiana before winning back his freedom in 1853.
Source: https://www.history.com 5 about answer two cryptogram three
6 about answer three
This engraving appeared in abolitionist George Bourne’s Slavery Illustrated in Its Effects upon Women, published in 1837. It highlight- ed the connections between the anti-slavery and women’s rights movements, as some women abolitionists, such as Sarah and Ange- lina Grimke, used the anti-slavery cause to address their own plight as women. The connections they drew were highly controversial, and many anti-slavery organizations were split over the issue of women’s rights. A similar male-version of this engraving emerged fifty years earlier in the 1790's.
Source: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6726
7 cryptogram four
8 about answer four
Frederick Douglass gave this speech in Rochester, NY in 1852 to commemorate a particular holiday for the United States. Cognizant of the contradictions embedded into the foundation of the United States, Douglass expounded for his audience the significance of this day for African Americans. In it, he points out the hypocrisy of declaring freedom from Britain’s control while subjugating an entire race of people. “All men” did not include people of African descent. “Unalienable rights” were stripped from those who were taken from their homeland and forced into lifelong servitude. And “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” could not be pursued at the end of a chain.
Source: https://thewitnessbcc.com
9 cryptogram five
10 about answer five
This poem was written by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper for The Anti-Slavery Bugle newspaper in 1858. Harper was an abolitionist, suffragist, poet, teacher, public speaker, and writer. She became one of the first African American women to be published in the United States.
Here is an excerpt from F.E.W. Harper's poem:
I could not rest if around my grave I heard the steps of a trembling slave; His shadow above my silent tomb Would make it a place of fearful gloom. I could not rest if I heard the tread Of a coffle gang to the shambles led, And the mother’s shriek of wild despair Rise like a curse on the trembling air. I could not sleep if I saw the lash Drinking her blood at each fearful gash, And I saw her babes torn from her breast, Like trembling doves from their parent nest. 11 cryptogram six
12 about answer six
This call to action was listed at the head of an 1863 editorial and multiple broadside posters. Frederick Douglass is attributed as the author of the message. Within the editorial he encourages all able-bodied African Americans to join the army in defense of the Union. The Civil War was considered to be an opportunity for African American men to claim their freedom by defending their country and defeating the Confederacy that sought to keep the institution of slavery alive.
Source: https://viennacarroll.com/
13 cryptogram seven
14 about answer seven
This sports team was founded in 1867 as the first of its kind for African Americans. The club founders were two young friends and prominent leaders in the black community, Jacob Clement White Jr. and Octavius Valentine Catto. Catto and White believed this team offered another way in which African Americans could assert their skills and be independent, and prove their rights to full citizenship and equality.
Source: https://buildnationblog.wordpress.com/ Image Source: https://www.associationforpublicart.org/artwork/catto-memorial/
15 cryptogram eight
16 about answer eight
These amendments granted Black men the right to vote, and later expanded this civil right to women. Coming out of the Reconstruction Era, there was much controversy surrounding the roles and responsibilities that Black men and women wielded as citizens of the United States rather than slaves to the country. Although slavery was outlawed in 1865, racist and sexist laws still barred black men and all women from their right to vote until these amendments were passed in 1870 and 1920. These hard-fought victories became possible through the collective leadership of African American activists like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Morris Chester, William Howard Day, and Jacob Compton.
Source : https://www.francesproject.org/ Image Credit: "A Gathering at the Crossroads" Artist Becky Ault
17 cryptogram Answer key
1. ACT FOR THE GRADUAL ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
2. THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT
3. AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?
4. WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?
5. BURY ME IN A FREE LAND
6. MEN OF COLOR, TO ARMS! TO ARMS! NOW OR NEVER!
7. THE PHILADELPHIA PYTHIAN BASEBALL TEAM
8. THE FIFTEENTH AND NINETEENTH AMENDMENTS