US HISTORY, December 3 • Entry Task: Give an example when WORDS can be considered dangerous. • Announcements: –Please take out your notes from yesterday. –Test – next WEDNESDAY (fill out your study guide!!!) David Walker • Born to a free African American woman in North Carolina • He witnessed cruelty towards slaves, particularly runaways By 1825, he settled in Boston, Massachusetts in a thriving black community – owned a clothing store He wrote for “Freedom’s Journal” Died at age 33 in 1830 (consumption or murder?) Edwin Walker – 1866 – 1st African American elected to Massachusetts legislature Predict: what was the reaction? • By fellow free African Americans? • By slaves? • By abolitionists? • By slave holders? Nat Turner’s Rebellion - 1831 • At least 56 slaveowners are killed in this slave rebellion, led by Nat Turner (joined by about 40 other slaves) Where is David Walker on this spectrum? terrorist revolutionary civil disobedient ----------------------------------------------------------------- Target ordinary Target police & Disobey unjust people; military forces; laws, not all laws; Violence seen Non-violent & Non-violence as necessary violent means necessary Covert action; Covert action; Open action; Avoid punishment Avoid capture Accept penalties • There are 313 documented slave uprisings in US History Questions to answer about your READING • Describe the leader/person’s background. • What was the origin and plan for resistance/revolt/runaway? • Were the slaves able to carry out their plan? If not, why not? If so, describe the circumstances. • What was the result of this resistance? Slavery under attack within • The slave resisted a number of ways – Broke tools – Ran away – Intentionally destroyed crops – Feigned illness – Helped others to escape – Did as little work as possible – Stole food – Bought themselves out of slavery – committed arson. • Arson, next to theft, was the most common slave crime/form of resistance. Murder as Resistance • Both masters and • "September, 1861. [Reading a letter] from Mary Witherspoon, and I broke down; horror and overseers were amazement was too much for me. Poor cousin Betsey Witherspoon was murdered! She did not die targets. peacefully in her bed, as we supposed, but was murdered by her own people, her Negroes. • Mary Chesnut's .Horrible beyond words!. .The men who went to Society Hill (the Witherspoon home) have come again diary gives a case with nothing very definite. William and Cousin Betsey's old maid, Rhody, are in jail; strong suspicion of poisoning from but as yet no proof of their guilt. The neighborhood is within her own in a ferment. Evans and Wallace say these Negroes ought to be burnt. Lynching proposed! …. Hitherto I family, and tells of have never thought of being afraid of Negroes. I had never injured any of them; why should they want to the implications as hurt me? Two thirds of my religion consists in trying to be good to Negroes, because they are so in our they struck her and power, and it would be so easy to be the other thing. her friends. Somehow today I feel that the ground is cut away from under my feet. Why should they treat me any better than they have done Cousin Betsy Witherspoon?" Rebellions • Armed • Armed with words – Gabriel Prosser – David Walker – Denmark Vesey – Maria Stewart – Nat Turner – Sojourner Truth – John Brown’s Raid – Fredereck Douglass – Harriet Tubman – Underground Railroad – Seminoles Questions to answer about your READING • Describe the leader/person’s background. • What was the origin and plan for resistance/revolt/runaway? • Were the slaves able to carry out their plan? If not, why not? If so, describe the circumstances. • What was the result of this resistance? • 1800 – Richmond, Virginia • Suppressed: Violent Storm halted the revolt – how do you think whites viewed this storm? • ca 1775-1800 • July 1822 – Charleston, SC • “Men must not only be dissatified; they must be so dissatisfied that they will act” • Conspiracy was betrayed by a house slave • ca 1767-1822 • 1831 – Southampton County, VA • 55 men, women, & children killed • After rebellion, Nat Turner hid in a cave – hundreds executed • Eventually, Turner was captured & hung • Slave holders - God was no longer protecting slave holders - paranoia US HISTORY, December 4 • Entry Task: Let’s finish up the rebellion/revolt/runaway examples! • Announcements: – Please take out your study guide – does everyone have one?? – Test – next WEDNESDAY – I’m in the process of updating grades – do you have: Jackson Essay, Alamo notes, Mex- American War timeline, and Manifest Destiny Write turned in??? Questions to answer about your READING • Describe the leader/person’s background. • What was the origin and plan for resistance/revolt/runaway? • Were the slaves able to carry out their plan? If not, why not? If so, describe the circumstances. • What was the result of this resistance? • Harriet Tubman was not only a leader of the Underground Railroad she was a spy for the Union Army. • “You will be free, or you will die.” Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad • Led over 300 slaves to freedom. • Field hand in Maryland – Her father taught her to chop wood and split rails, and other lessons for survival in the woods. • Made 19 trips back and forth between North and South to lead slaves to freedom. • 1856 - $40,000 reward for her capture • The Underground • This a map of some of Railroad was a series of the “stops.” safe houses. An estimated 100,000 people escaped by the Underground Railroad • The Gage Home, a stop for many runaways on the Underground Railroad. Erastus Farnham House – Fremont, Indiana This 45-foot long tunnel connects the Milton House basement to the cellar of the Goodrich log cabin behind it - IL - “Conductor” ==== leader of the escape - “Passengers” ==== escaping slaves - “Tracks” ==== routes - “Trains” ==== farm wagons transporting the escaping slaves - “Depots” ==== safe houses to rest/sleep • 1848 – Escaped to freedom • Ellen, light-skinned, dressed up as William’s owner • Their story was made public as a remarkable and romantic escape • An abolitionist activist, she wrote “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” • Published her work under name “Linda Brent” Ad offering a reward for the capture of Harriet Jacobs. American Beacon ( Norfolk Virginia), July 4, 1835 • 1813 – Harriet is born in NC • 1819 – Harriet’s mother died and she realizes that she is a slave • 1828 – Dr. Flint, Harriet’s owner, tries to exploit her • 1831 – Harriet has a daughter with Mr. Sands • 1835 – Harriet goes into hiding • 1842 – Harriet escapes to the North • 1844-45 – Her children join her • 1852 - $300 paid for freedom • 1853 – Harriet begins to write about her experiences The Desperation of the Runaway • Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave, trapped near Cincinnati, killed her own daughter and tried to kill herself. • "She rejoiced that the girl was dead – 'now she would never know what a woman suffers as a slave‘ – and pleaded to be tried for murder. 'I will go singing to the gallows rather than be returned to slavery."' • Source for Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved The Desperation of the Runaway Thomas Satterwhite Noble’s 1867 painting, Margaret Garner John Brown – 1859 Harper’s Ferry, Virginia Arguments Against Slavery • Economically – Slavery hinders progress – America = beacon of progress • British Empire = Freed slaves by Act of Parliament in 1833, France in 1794, brought back, then again 1848 • Immorality - Moral suasion – Slavery is cruel and unjust and deprived people of natural and unalienable rights - a national sin – No man should have ownership over another man – affects both slaves and masters, for example, it encouraged sexual immorality & destroys the family Stanford Prison Experiment • The Lucifer Effect – how good people turn evil (Zimbardo) • There were many results, but perhaps the most important was simply this: The simulation became so real, and the guards became so abusive, that the experiment had to be shut down after only 6 days rather than the two weeks planned. • With a little nudge…perhaps we would all become tyrants??? • Teens who BULLY their peers are four times more likely than nonbullies to be convicted of crimes by age 24, with 60 percent of bullies having at least one criminal conviction. Anti-Slave Arguments Leg Irons Slave ID Tag Slave muzzle Concern of abolitionists: Slavery degrades the sexuality of both slaves and masters (and both male and female slaves) – HARRIET JACOBS Frederick Douglass’s Accounts • Reflecting on his childhood, recalled the floggings and torture of many rebellious women. • His cousin was horribly beaten as she unsuccessfully resisted an overseer's sexual attack. Frederick Douglass – 1852 speech • “What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the last, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder [break apart] their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No; I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. No, I will not… The time for such arguments is past.” Arguments Against Slavery • Irony of Slavery – Slavery vs. American dream – “all men are created equal” hypocrisy – “If Slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln • Racism – Africans and their descendents were humans, and are therefore brothers • Gradual vs. Immediate – Pennsylvania – 1780 (gradual – last slave freed in 1847) Most gradual – future children or after a certain date/# of years – Massachusetts – 1783 (“instant”) Why do you think many Northerners opposed abolition? Public Response to Abolitionism • Initial (Northern) public responses to the radical abolitionists were insults, ridicule, and violence.