Slavery in America Trivia

1. In which state was Nat Turner born?

From Quiz Nat Turner and His Rebellion

Answer: Virginia

Nat Turner was born into slavery in Southampton County, Virginia on October 2, 1800. Southampton County is located on the southern border of Virginia and North Carolina. By the time of Nat Turner's rebellion, the area had more free and enslaved blacks than whites.

From Quiz William Lloyd Garrison, Famous Abolitionist

Answer: Massachusetts

Massachusetts had about 1.5% blacks in the 1800 and 1810 federal censuses, all of them free. Slavery had ended in the state after several 1780s court cases showed it was incompatible with Massachusetts' state constitution. Garrison grew up in a state whose citizens had once participated in the African slave trade, but who had changed and not only cooperated with the end of the African trade everywhere in 1808, but had ended slavery within the state -- a progressive attitude that carried over into his life and the lives of others in his generation, as they hoped to end slavery everywhere in the United States. It was going to be a struggle, though.

From Quiz The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act

Answer: it defined how to enforce Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 stated "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." In other words, if an enslaved person ran away to a free state, he/she wasn't free no matter what laws the free state passed or how hard it tried to nullify federal laws. The free state always needed to take the enslaved person back into slavery. Residents of free states didn't like that. They didn't want slave owners telling them what to do.

From Quiz Slave Rebellions--When Freedom Was So Close

Answer: Creole

The passengers of the Creole managed almost a miracle: a successful slave uprising. They were bound from the area of Richmond, Va. down the coast to New Orleans, being shipped by interstate slave traders. Madison Washington led the rebellion, and once he had a white man who promised to obey, he asked that they be taken across the ocean to Liberia in Africa. After he learned that was impossible for a coast-bound ship, they agreed on any nearer area under British control. They landed in Nassau, and after much legal arguing, almost all were set free. Similar things had happened before when weather or other trouble had forced American slave ships into British ports, and British courts were grudgingly setting up a system of freeing the people and compensating the owners with money for their value. The Creole made it to Nassau in good weather under its own sail, and the slaves took advantage of the situation.

From Quiz Basic US History: #1 Slavery

Answer: four million people

According to the 1860 U.S. Census, there were 3,950,528 slaves held in the states at that time. Certainly, accuracy, methodology and exact numbers are questionable, but the general scope of the "peculiar institution" and the untenable problems it created are not. Georgia had the most, with 462,198 and Mississippi had the greatest percentage, 55% of its population or 436,631 slaves. With these massive numbers of people in captivity, it's easy to see how the fear of slaves escaping and rebelling was a major concern for plantation owners.

From Quiz I Exist...Honest!

Answer: Shadrach Wilkins

Although James Williams mentioned his twin brother Meshech in the narrative, people in the 1830s still argued whether Williams was the same person as Shadrach Wilkins, not noticing that he'd given away the answer. The names Shadrach and Meshech made more sense than James and Meshech because of the Biblical characters Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego. The famous Frederick Douglass coincidentally escaped to freedom in New York in 1838, the same year as James Williams, though they never met. Jim Thornton was another alias that James Williams used during his many adventures.

From Quiz Frederick Douglass

Answer: 3

He wrote three: "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass", "My Bondage and My Freedom", and the "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass".

From Quiz The Fall of Captain Nathaniel Gordon

Answer: Erie

Gordon took on a crew in Havana, telling them they were on a legitimate trading voyage. Only when well into the trip did they check the stores - and realise there were far more provisions than they would need. They smelled a rat. When they brought this up to the captain, he offered to let anyone who did not want to stay on the ship go ashore - where there was little chance of them being found by a legitimate ship.

From Quiz They Fought Against Slavery

Answer: Denmark Vessey

Denmark Vessey had managed to buy his freedom and supported himself as a carpenter. In July of 1822, Vessey with about 80 others, planned to take over Charleston. However, he was betrayed, and the rebellion never even had a chance to start. There has been recent evidence that perhaps Vessey was framed for the incident.

From Quiz The Story of Amistad

Answer: 25,000

In 1817, a treaty was made between Britain and Spain banning the sale of slaves in any Spanish colonies. Over a two year period, 25,000 slaves were taken to Cuba to be sold. The slaves that weren't sold in Cuba were put back on the Amistad.

From Quiz Slavery in America

Answer: 1619

A number of African people were kidnapped, then transported to transported to Virginia 1619. They were sold as indentured servants to the English settlers. Soon their status as virtual slaves turned into legal slavery.

From Quiz The Fight To End Slavery

Answer: 1619

This human cargo arrived when a Dutch slave trader landed unexpectedly in Virginia. The Africans were technically "indentured servants", not slaves. However, they had almost no rights ... Thus began one of our nation's darkest periods as the fight to end this horrific institution was to last almost 250 years.

From Quiz Nat Turner and His Rebellion

Answer: He had a vision from God telling him to return

Turner was deeply religious and had learned to read in his youth, largely by studying the Bible. Although he ran away when he was 21, after becoming delirious from hunger, he believed he had a vision from God telling him to return to his master. He became a preacher among his fellow slaves and continued to have visions, which earned him the nickname of "The Prophet." According to Deborah Gray-White in "Freedom on my mind: A History of African Americans," one day, while working in the fields, on May 12, 1828, Nat had a vision that he should "fight against the Serpent."

From Quiz William Lloyd Garrison, Famous Abolitionist

Answer: an apprentice typesetter, newspaper writer and editor

William Lloyd Garrison came from a poor family. His father left when he was three and his mother died when he was 18. He began selling candy and lemonade and delivering wood, but at age 13, he apprenticed as a compositor or typesetter for the local Newburyport Herald. After he finished his apprenticeship, he wrote for, edited, or owned a variety of newspapers which he either left or which failed, some just regular papers, others with specific causes such as temperance or anti-slavery.

From Quiz Bacon Tait -- Richmond's Major Slave Trader

Answer: French

Thomas Boudar was born in Cuba in 1802 to a French family who had fled from Santo Domingo with other French families during the revolution there. Though he certainly grew up in a French culture and learned French from his family, he may also have known Spanish, an additional useful language in New Orleans.

From Quiz The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act

Answer: no, the 1850 act replaced the original 1793 Fugitive Slave Act

The 1850 act replaced the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act which had been in place for 57 years, but was not effective enough to make the slave states happy. The 1850 Act contained several significant changes. If you were enslaved, the new law made it harder for you to escape. If you were free, it was harder for you to help someone escape. That's coming up in more detail next, but watch for hints.

From Quiz When Citizens Stood Up To Slave Catchers

Answer: John Price

John Price had escaped from the farm of John G. Bacon in 1856, and had spent two years near Oberlin, Ohio, mainly living with James Armstrong, another black laborer. Anderson Jennings, the neighbor of Price's owner back in Kentucky, worked to recapture Price. He got Shakespeare Boynton, the son of an Oberlin landowner, to approach Price with an offer of work, but it was actually a trap. Price was taken to the Wadsworth House Hotel in Wellington, Ohio, where the successful rescue took place.

From Quiz Slave Rebellions--When Freedom Was So Close

Answer: John Brown

No hints, other than listing obscure abolitionists for the alternate choices, as I hope John Brown's name is well known enough. With only a few men armed mainly with pikes, he began a grandiose plan to begin a slave rebellion that would spread far and wide within the south. The first step was to gain better weapons at the U.S. arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Va., which was filled with brand new guns. He was cornered and soon caught, ironically by Col. Robert E. Lee. He was put on trial and hanged, and was remembered either as a martyr, a crazy person or an example of what abolitionists might do to the south. The country careened ever closer toward civil war.

From Quiz Basic US History: #1 Slavery

Answer: 1619

A Dutch ship off-loaded 20 captured Africans at Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, bringing the barbarous and immoral practice of human chattel slavery to America, initially in the form of indentured servants. The activity grew to epic proportions and eventually tore the nation apart. The motivation and purpose for this burgeoning human traffic was economic and basic. The new colonists needed cheap labor to cultivate their crops, chiefly tobacco at first, which was in great demand in England. It is noteworthy that for at least a hundred years previously, European explorers, adventurers and early settlers had already brought slaves to areas of the Caribbean and South America. For example, King Ferdinand of Spain authorized a shipment of fifty slaves to Santo Domingo in 1510, effectively kicking off the systematic import of forced slave labor into the New World.

From Quiz I Exist...Honest!

Answer: He tried to help poison a neighboring slave owner.

Williams offered to supply poisonous hemlock root to a neighboring enslaved man so he could kill his owner. The other conspiring slaves were caught, tried and banished from Virginia. Though Williams was not tried in court, his owner was too afraid to keep him, so she sold him and his family to Alabama. In the narrative, Williams says he was sent south to be a driver on another plantation owned by his same master and omits the real reason, which would make him seem less sympathetic.

From Quiz Frederick Douglass

Answer: three times

They met three times: In August 1863, the second time the following August and the third and final time on the day of Lincoln's second inauguration. On the last occasion, Lincoln called Douglass "My good friend."

From Quiz The Fall of Captain Nathaniel Gordon

Answer: 897

About one half of the Africans purchased were children, the youngest being around 6 months old. The rest were younger adults, the eldest being about 40. Men and women were equally represented in the latter group. Children did not obtain as high a price as adults, but more could be fit into the ship, making it more lucrative than taking on just adults.

From Quiz The Story of Amistad

Answer: Cinque

In June of 1839, Cinque was a slave who was put on the Amistad along with fifty-two other slaves, including four children. One month after being put on the Amistad, Cinque led a mutiny in which the Captain and the cook of the ship were killed. Two crewmen escaped in a rowboat. Two other crewmen named Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montes were kept alive to steer the ship back to Africa.

From Quiz Slavery in America

Answer: The Caribbean

Of course, the slaves ultimately came from various parts of West Africa and this was the main source of the slave trade.

From Quiz The Fight To End Slavery

Answer: abolitionist

Although Quakers helped many slaves escape bondage, "abolitionist" is the correct answer, as it includes all those who sought to abolish slavery.

From Quiz William Lloyd Garrison, Famous Abolitionist

Answer: guilty of libel for criticizing a slave shipper

While co-editing the Baltimore "Genius of Universal Emancipation," Garrison named a slave shipper, Francis Todd of Massachusetts, in the newspaper's "Black List" of slave mistreatment. Todd had shipped slaves legally from Baltimore to New Orleans, but Garrison criticized him publicly in the newspaper. Baltimore wasn't very friendly to emancipationists anyway, and Todd argued he was doing nothing wrong. Garrison either couldn't or didn't pay the fine, so he was sentenced to six months in jail, but only had to serve seven weeks, because abolitionist Arthur Tappan paid the fine. It ended his career with the "Genius of Universal Emancipation," though on a friendly note.

From Quiz Bacon Tait -- Richmond's Major Slave Trader

Answer: Virginia and Louisiana

Wilkinson and DeEnde had been trading slaves from Virginia to New Orleans since 1822. Both were originally from Virginia, but DeEnde had moved to New Orleans years earlier. Wilkinson bought slaves in Virginia and De Ende sold them in New Orleans. Tait suggested to Wilkinson and DeEnde that if they let him in as a partner, he wouldn't compete with them, because he was planning to start trading himself if they didn't let him in. Also, his extra investment would increase their capital and help them earn more. They agreed, and he joined them in 1828 by investing $10,000, money which he had inherited from his father and then increased by investing in real estate. He had done well in real estate, so it was only a portion of all he had. He worked with Wilkinson in Virginia as a slave buyer.

From Quiz Slave Rebellions--When Freedom Was So Close

Answer: Denmark Vesey

Denmark Vesey, also called Telemaque, bought his freedom after winning a lottery, and worked as a carpenter in Charleston, S.C. He managed to organize hundreds, perhaps thousands, of slaves and free blacks to revolt starting July 14, 1822, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in the French revolution. By some accounts, he planned to kill Charleston slaveowners, free their slaves, and sail to Haiti where he would be safe. With so many people involved, the plan was impossible to keep quiet, and two men in particular, George Wilson and Joe LaRoche, gave specific details, apparently due to their loyalty to their masters. The potential insurrectionists were tried, and sentenced depending on their degree of involvement and hostile attitude. Sixty-seven were hanged including Vesey, 31 were transported out of state, 27 acquitted, and 38 released. Other laws were passed limiting slaves' ability to attend churches, and restricting the movement of free blacks. The name Denmark probably comes from where he was born, St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies. I tried to help by giving names of other people who weren't real.

From Quiz Basic US History: #1 Slavery

Answer: cotton

In 1794, Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin (word derived as an abbreviation of "engine," not the alcoholic drink!) This simple machine greatly accelerated the process of separating cotton fiber from seed, increasing by a factor of fifty the amount of cotton that could be processed by a single individual. This actually increased the need for slave labor because of the profitability factor. As growing cotton became a potentially huge money maker, demand for the raw material skyrocketed and plantation owners scrambled for more land to plant and more bodies to work that land. The economies of the North and South evolved in different directions, with the North becoming more industrialized and city-based, while the South remained chiefly agrarian, supplying raw materials to the North. This was a main reason slavery became such an integral part of life in the South.

From Quiz Sold South

Answer: An auction will be held today

A red flag was a traditional sign for any forthcoming auction of property, but as the interstate slave trade grew and some auctioneers began to specialize in selling only slaves, the red flag came to be an emotional symbol for those who knew it signalled that many lives would be disrupted permanently that day.

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