Effective: 2024-05-01

Course Description

The course outline below was developed as part of a statewide standardization process.

General Course Purpose

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the major concepts and debates related to the experiences of African-Americans between the 16th century and the late 19th century in North America.

Course Objectives

• Critical Thinking
• Analyze and evaluate primary and secondary sources to describe the creation of distinct African-American cultures and how that culture shaped and influenced American history
• Differentiate between fact, inference, and opinion as pertaining to African-American history through 1876
• Written / Oral Communication
• Explain how concepts of race and gender changed as Africans and African Americans influenced and shaped social, cultural, and political structures of society across the 16th through 19th century through written activities and/or oral presentations/discussion
• Describe the key events, developments, and people, from the 16th century through the late 19th century, that shaped race and gender in the United States through written activities and/or oral presentations/discussion
• Quantitative/Graphic Analysis
• Analyze numerical data, graphs, and maps as they pertain to understanding the development of events and trends throughout African American history from the 16th century through the late 19th century
• Cultural and Social Understanding
• Identify and compare individuals and groups who worked to improve the human and civil rights of African Americans through distinct individual and collective strategies. [ie rebellion, resistance, organized abolitionism and civil rights advocacy through formal organizations]
• Demonstrate understanding of cultural encounters, interactions, and negotiations between African Americans and other racial groups and social classes
• Examine the racialized nature of American constructions of gender and sexuality that shaped a distinctive experience for African American Women in American History

Major Topics to be Included

• Points of Origin, such as: African origins; African identities
• Describe the African people who migrated to the Americas, voluntarily and involuntarily
• Compare and contrast the use of slavery in English Colonies to Spanish, French, and Dutch Colonies
• Identify the distinguishing features of West African civilizations
• Examine how enslaved people retained their African culture and identities
• Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Middle Passage, such as: Slave Factories and Forts; Long Middle Passage; Surviving the Slave Ships
• Discuss the origins, evolution, racial aspects, and spread of Transatlantic Slave trade
• Analyze the economic factors of slavery including indigenous slavery, indentured Servanthood, and chattel slavery
• Discuss the elements and brutalities of the Middle Passage
• Compare and Contrast slavery in Africa before Europeans with chattel slavery that developed in European colonies of the Americas
• The Plantation World takes Shape, such as: Virginia 1619; Slave economies; Production, Control, and Resistance; Gender differences Development and evolution of varying legal systems
• Discuss the important differences between various slave societies in the Caribbean and North American plantations societies
• Describe the creation of a distinct African-American culture in the North American colonies
• Compare and contrast the differences between tobacco, rice, and sugar labor systems
• Analyze the development and evolution of colonial laws that defined and distinguished indentured servitude from chattel slavery
• Slavery in the North, such as: Slavery among the Puritans and Quakers; Slavery in mercantile societies; Free black communities
• Compare and contrast the differences between a slave society and a society with slaves
• Discuss life in free black communities
• Identify the beginnings of the abolition movement in Quaker communities
• The African American Revolution, such as: African American Experience during the Revolution; American Slavery, American Freedom; African American Patriots and Loyalists
• Describe how African Americans used the American Revolution to achieve freedom
• Analyze how black people used the language of revolution and natural rights in petition for freedom and the abolition of slavery
• Compare and contrast how the war brought freedom for some African Americans who fought for the British and continued slavery for those owned by American Loyalists
• Describe how African Americans, during times of war, have forced America to live up to its promise of freedom and equality
• Compare and contrast the views and experiences of both African-American patriots and loyalists
• Slavery in the New Nation, such as: Limits to Emancipation; Free Blacks; Women's role in the Abolition movement.
• Discuss the role of language and religion as they relate to the creation of a unique African-American culture.
• Analyze the roles of language and religion in shaping cultural identities in America today
• Summarize the various forms of emancipation in the new nations
• Describe how the reform movements of the Antebellum period influenced and affected free Blacks
• Explain how the Haitian Revolution influenced slavery in the United States
• Expansion of Slavery in the South, such as: Black Life in the Slave South; Domestic Slave Trade
• Discuss how the cotton kingdom transformed the lives of African Americans
• Analyze the political, social, and economic factors that created and shaped the Domestic Slave Trade
• Compare and contrast enslaved peoples' experience on cotton, sugar, and rice plantations
• Navigating Slavery, such as: Gender, Sexuality and Family Life; Rebellion, Resistance, and Flight
• Discuss the unique sexual and gender perspectives and experiences of women under slavery
• Compare and contrast the experiences and perspectives of enslavement for women and men
• Analyze the economic effects of slavery on African-American family life
• Describe how enslaved people negotiated and resisted enslavement
• Summarize major slave uprisings in the United States and their influence on the Abolition movement and state legislation
• Black Freedom Struggle, such as: Abolitionism and Slave Resistance; Politics of Slavery in the 1850s; Proslavery vs Antislavery Arguments
• Describe the origins of the abolition movement in the United States
• Compare and contrast the different abolition movements and organizations
• Discuss the Southern response to the abolition movement
• Explain how western migration and manifest destiny influenced the politics of slavery in the United States
• Summarize the Free Soil Movement
• Examine African Americans' participation in western migration
• Identify issues related to slavery that divided the north and south in the 19th century
• The Civil War, such as: Secession; Contrabands and Soldiers; Jubilee: First Freedoms
• Discuss the proslavery position for secession and analyze the process of disunion
• Explain why and how African Americans fought to make the Civil War about freedom and emancipation
• Describe the emancipation of enslaved people during the war
• Identify and describe African-American participation and contributions to the war effort
• Reconstruction, such as: The impact of Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction on African Americans; First Years of Freedom; New Rights; "Best Men" and "Best Women" reform movement in African American Communities; Redeeming the South
• Analyze both the short and long term political, economic, and social implications of Reconstruction for African Americans
• Describe the three major Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution and their significance to African-American Civil Rights
• Explain how Southern politicians "redeemed" the South, using violence to deny African Americans their political and economic rights
• Discuss African Americans" political, social, and economic participation in Reconstruction as politicians, teachers, business leaders, and reformers
• Evaluate the legacy and limitations of Reconstruction