African American Terms Flashcards
An organization founded in Washington DC by prominent slave holders. It claimed to encourage the ultimate abolition of slavery by sending free African Americans to it’s west African colony of Liberia. 1812-1912
American Colonization Society
A key concept in abolitionist and northern antislavery propaganda that depicted southern slaveholders as the driving force in a political conspiracy to promote slavery at the expense of white liberties
Slave Power
African Americans who had the belief that they must seek their racial destiny by establishing separate institutions and, perhaps, migrating as a group to a location -often Africa- outside of the US
Black Nationalists
1815; Cuffe, who owned and commanded a ship, took 34 African American settlers to the free black colony of Sierra Leone, located just north of what is now Liberia
Sierra Leone & Liberia
1816-1912; The umbrella organization for immediate abolitionists during the 1830’s and the main Garrisonian organization after 1840
American Anti-slavery Society
1833-1870; A biracial abolitionist organization aligned with the American Anti-Slavery Society. White Quaker women dominated the society, but it included a significant number of black women
Philadelphia Female Anti-slavery Society
A tactic endorsed by the American Anti-Slavery Society during the 1830’s. It appealed to slaveholders and others to support immediate emancipation on the basis of Christian principles
Moral Suasion
A series of national, regional, and local conventions, starting in 1830, where black leaders addressed the concerns of free and enslaved blacks. Moral suasion. A primary strategy in the abolitionist movement that relied on vigorous appeals to the nations moral and Christian conscience.
Black Convention Movement
1827; Samuel Cornish began publishing the first African American newspaper. John Russwurm was his cofounder
Freedoms’ Journal
1831-1865; William Lloyd Garrison; First abolitionist newspaper to call for an immediate end to slavery; marked the beginning of a variety of anti-slavers, that was new in tone, social composition, and doctrine.
The Liberator
1847-1851; A weekly newspaper published and edited by Fredrick Douglass.
North Star (the newspaper)
1840-1848; The first antislavery political party. Most of its supporters joined the Free Soil Party in 1848, although its radical New York wing maintained a Liberty organization into the 1850’s
Liberty Party
The Mexican- American war was from 1846-1848. It was started by a dispute by the Rio Grande and the Nueces River. The Mexican- American war was the first battle on foreign soil, fueled by the desire of James K. Polk to fulfill Manifest Destiny. The Americans won the Mexican-American War, gaining the Mexican Cession and Mexico lost about one third of its territory; The Mexican Cession was what the Americans gained after the Mexican American war. We payed $15,000,000 for the cession and almost fulfilled the idea of Manifest Destiny, and also started Westward Expansion.
Mexican War (also known as Mexican Cession)
An attempt by the US Congress to settle divisive issues between the North and South, including slavery expansion, apprehension in the North of fugitive slaves, and slavery in the District of Columbia
Compromise of 1850
Part of the compromise in 1850. It required law enforcement officials as well as civilians to assist in capturing runaway slaves
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 & writ of habeas corpus
1854; Legislation introduced by Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas to organize the Kansas and Nebraska territories. It provided for “popular sovereignty”, whereby settlers would decide whether slavery would be legal or illegal
Kansas and Nebraska Act
Antislavery novel was a best seller in the 1850’s and it helped inflame the controversy over slavery
Harriet Beecher Stowes’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
SENATOR CHARLES SUMNER of Massachusetts was an avowed Abolitionist and leader of the Republican Party. After the sack of Lawrence, on May 21, 1856, he gave a bitter speech in the Senate called “THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS.” He blasted the “murderous robbers from Missouri,” calling them “hirelings, picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization.” Part of this oratory was a bitter, personal tirade against South Carolina’s SENATOR ANDREW BUTLER. Sumner declared Butler an imbecile and said, “Senator Butler has chosen a mistress. I mean the harlot, slavery.” During the speech, Stephen Douglas leaned over to a colleague and said, “that damn fool will get himself killed by some other damn fool.” The speech went on for two days.
REPRESENTATIVE PRESTON BROOKS of South Carolina thought Sumner went too far. Southerners in the nineteenth century were raised to live by an unwritten code of honor. Defending the reputation of one’s family was at the top of the list. A distant cousin of Senator Butler, Brooks decided to teach Charles Sumner a lesson he would not soon forget. Two days after the end of Sumner’s speech, Brooks entered the Senate chamber where Sumner was working at his desk. He flatly told Sumner, “You’ve libeled my state and slandered my white-haired old relative, Senator Butler, and I’ve come to punish you for it.” Brooks proceeded to strike Sumner over the head repeatedly with a gold-tipped cane. The cane shattered as Brooks rained blow after blow on the hapless Sumner, but Brooks could not be stopped. Only after being physically restrained by others did Brooks end the pummeling.
Preston Brooks & Charles Sumner
1857; US Supreme Court case ruled against the Missouri slave by declaring that black people were not citizens, possessed no constitutional rights, and were considered to be property
The Dred Scott Decision
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated 7 times in the 1858 US Senate race in Illinois. They spent most of their time arguing over slavery, its expansion, the Dred Scott decision, and the character of African Americans. Douglas won the election
Lincoln-Douglass Debates
John Brown
