A People’s History of the United States, Zinn (1980) Flashcards
How many slaves were taken to the New World by 1619?
“a million blacks had already been brought from Africa to South America and the Caribbean, to the Portuguese and Spanish colonies…” (ch 2)
What was the first American slave ship? Details (when, where, who)
The Desire. 1637 from Marblehead
Was African slavery different than American slavery?
Yes. “In the Ashanti Kingdom of West Africa, one observer noted that “a slave might marry; own property; himself own a slave; swear an oath; be a competent witness and ultimately become heir to his master. . . . An Ashanti slave, nine cases out of ten, possibly became an adopted member of the family, and in time his descendants so merged and intermarried with the owner’s kinsmen that only a few would know their origin.”
How many Africans were taken to the Americas during the period of the TAA
“It is roughly estimated that Africa lost 50 million human beings to death and slavery in those centuries we call the beginnings of modern Western civilization, at the hands of slave traders and plantation owners in Western Europe and America, the countries deemed the most advanced in the world.”
First lockout in US history?
“At the Gloucester shipyards in the 1640s, what Richard Morris calls the “first lockout in American labor history” took place when the authorities told a group of troublesome shipwrights they could not “worke a stroke of worke more.””
Which states had laws against white-black marriage and why?
““laws prohibiting interracial marriage in Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Georgia. By declaring the children illegitimate, they would keep them inside the black families, so that the white population could remain “pure” and in control.”
