Freedom, Slavery, and Resistance

In 1662, the colonial assembly of Virginia enacted a law declaring that all children born in the colony would be bond or free according to the condition of the mother. This legislation marked a significant departure from traditional English common law, which dictated that a child's legal status was determined by the father. Which of the following best explains why colonial legislators established this new legal doctrine?

Read the excerpt below from a letter written by Mary Ann Shadd Cary, published in *The Provincial Freeman* in 1854:

'We must do something for ourselves... and we must not cover up our own weaknesses, while we are exposing the corruption of our enemies. If we are not self-reliant, we can never be an independent people. We have been too long dependent on others. Let us stand on our own feet, cultivate the soil, and build up our own institutions in this land of freedom.'

Which of the following best explains how Shadd Cary’s argument reflects a major debate among mid-nineteenth-century Black abolitionists?

Consider the following passage analyzing the intersection of gender and resistance under chattel slavery:

"The gendered expectations of plantation society, combined with the legal reality that an enslaved child's status was inherited from their mother, created distinct conditions for enslaved women's resistance. While enslaved men were more likely to attempt permanent, long-distance escapes, enslaved women—often primary caregivers with deep family ties—developed strategies that allowed them to challenge authority while remaining within reach of their kin."

Based on the passage and historical context, which of the following best describes how family ties and legal status influenced the resistance strategies of enslaved women?

Historians of the African diaspora distinguish between different methods of flight and resistance used by enslaved populations in the Americas. Which of the following best describes the primary characteristic of grand maroonage?

In 1800, a major planned rebellion in Richmond, Virginia, was organized by an enslaved blacksmith who mobilized hundreds of followers under the banner of liberty. However, the plot was uncovered before it could be executed due to a severe rainstorm and betrayal by informants. Which of the following conspiracies or rebellions is described?

Read the excerpt below from a speech delivered by activist Sarah Parker Remond in Manchester, England, in 1859:

"I have come to England to appeal to the British public, because I know that your moral influence is felt in America. The slaveholders of the South, and their political allies in the North, are sensitive to the opinion of the civilized world... We ask for your sympathy, your moral support, and your aid in exposing the true character of American slavery."

Which of the following best describes the primary strategy of Black abolitionist activism illustrated in Remond's speech?

Historians of the antebellum South have noted that runaway advertisements for enslaved women frequently described them as having fled to nearby woods or neighboring plantations to visit family members, whereas advertisements for enslaved men more commonly described attempts to reach northern free states.

Which of the following best explains this difference in patterns of flight between enslaved men and women?

Read the following excerpt from a statute passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1705:

'And also be it enacted... That all servants imported and brought into this country, by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country... shall be accounted and be slaves, and as such be here bought and sold notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards.'

Which of the following best describes the historical process illustrated by this statute?

Read the following excerpt from the South Carolina Act for the Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes and Other Slaves (1712):

"Be it enacted... That all negroes, mulattoes, mustizoes or Indians, which heretofore have been sold, or now are, or hereafter shall be bought or sold in this Province... and their children, are hereby made and declared, and shall from henceforth and for ever hereafter be deemed, absolute slaves, and all and every such negroes... shall be herein taken, deemed and adjudged to be chattel."

Which of the following best analyzes the primary historical significance of this statute?

In her 1861 autobiography, an enslaved woman describes her decision to hide in a tiny crawlspace above her grandmother’s home for seven years rather than succumb to her enslaver’s demands or flee to the North, which would have required separating from her children.

Which of the following statements best explains how this act of resistance reflects the gendered dimensions of slavery in the antebellum United States?

Read the following excerpt from a colonial statute passed in May 1740:

"And whereas the having slaves taught to write, or suffering them to be employed in writing, may be attended with great inconveniences; Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all and every person and persons whatsoever, who shall hereafter teach, or cause any slave or slaves to be taught, to write... shall, for every such offense, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds current money."

Which of the following historical events was the immediate catalyst for the passage of the legislation excerpted above, and what did its provisions signify regarding the colonial response to organized resistance?

Read the following excerpt from William Craft's memoir, *Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom* (1860), describing his wife Ellen’s plan to escape from Georgia:

'Knowing that slaveholders had the right to register and examine any lone female traveler, my wife, who was very fair, suggested that she should disguise herself as a young cotton planter, and that I should travel with her as her slave. To prevent her from having to sign her name at hotels, we placed her right arm in a sling; and to limit conversation, she bound up her face in bandages to feign an illness.'

Which of the following best analyzes how Ellen Craft's disguise exploited the gendered and racial norms of the antebellum South to facilitate their escape?

During the antebellum period in the United States, enslaved African Americans frequently gathered in secret, secluded outdoor locations such as wooded areas, ravines, or swamps to hold religious services and maintain community bonds away from the surveillance of white slaveholders. Which of the following terms is used by historians to describe these hidden spaces of worship and cultural preservation?

Many of the enslaved Africans who participated in the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina shared a common cultural and geographic origin in the Kingdom of Kongo. Which of the following elements of their Kongolese background directly aided their ability to launch and coordinate this armed revolt?

In 1855, Celia, an enslaved teenage woman in Missouri, was tried for the murder of her master, Robert Newsom, whom she killed while resisting his repeated sexual assaults. Her defense attorneys argued that a Missouri statute protecting 'any woman' from sexual violence gave Celia the legal right to use force in self-defense. However, the trial court rejected this defense, instructing the jury that as property, an enslaved woman possessed no legal right to resist her master's physical or sexual domination.

Based on this historical account, the trial of Celia demonstrates which of the following aspects of the gendered dimensions of chattel slavery?

Historians of the American South have noted that the division of labor on plantations was heavily gendered, with enslaved women frequently assigned to domestic duties, textile production, healthcare, and child-rearing alongside agricultural tasks. While these roles subjected women to distinct forms of exploitation, they also shaped their strategies of opposition.

Based on this context and historical evidence, which of the following best describes how the gendered division of labor influenced the resistance patterns of enslaved women?

Read the passage below from a historical study of the Gullah Geechee region:

'Enslaved agricultural laborers in the lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia constructed coiled baskets using local sweetgrass, pine needles, and palmetto leaves. These flat, wide 'fanner' baskets were identical in design and technique to winnowing baskets used in the rice-growing regions of West Africa.'

Which of the following is best demonstrated by the practice described in the passage?

Read the following excerpt from the first editorial of Freedom's Journal, the first African American-owned and operated newspaper in the United States, published by John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish in 1827:

"We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the publick been deceived by misrepresentations, in things which concern us dearly..."

Based on this excerpt, which of the following best describes the primary objective of the publishers in establishing this newspaper?

Read the following excerpt from a statute enacted by the Virginia General Assembly in 1667:

"WHEREAS some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made pertakers of the blessed sacrament of baptisme, should by vertue of their baptisme be made ffree; It is enacted and declared by this grand assembly, and the authority thereof, that the conferring of baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedome; that diverse masters, ffreed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavour the propagation of christianity..."

The statute excerpted above was primarily designed to resolve which of the following tensions in the colonial legal construction of slavery?

Which of the following practices best demonstrates how enslaved African Americans retained West African agricultural and culinary traditions while supplementing their basic food rations?