Slavery in America Flashcards

Grade 8 · Social Studies · Flashcards

Key people, events, and concepts in the history of American slavery for Grade 8 Social Studies.

Flashcards

1619

Year the first enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia — the beginning of American slavery

Transatlantic Slave Trade

Forced movement of ~12.5 million Africans to the Americas over 350 years; ~400,000 came directly to the US

Cotton Gin (1793)

Eli Whitney's invention that processed cotton 50x faster by hand — massively expanded slavery in the Deep South

Chattel Slavery

System where enslaved people were legal property — bought, sold, inherited, and used as collateral for loans

Underground Railroad

Network of safe houses and routes helping enslaved people escape to freedom in the North or Canada

Harriet Tubman

Escaped slavery in 1849; returned south 13 times to lead ~70 people to freedom; called 'Moses of her people'

Frederick Douglass

Escaped enslaved man who became America's most powerful abolitionist speaker and writer; advisor to President Lincoln

William Lloyd Garrison

White abolitionist who published 'The Liberator' newspaper demanding immediate emancipation

Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831)

Slave revolt that killed ~60 white Virginians; led to harsher laws restricting enslaved people across the South

Abolitionists

People who demanded the complete end of slavery in the United States

Dred Scott Decision (1857)

Supreme Court ruled enslaved people were property with no legal rights — inflamed sectional tensions

13th Amendment (1865)

Abolished slavery throughout the United States — ratified after the Civil War ended

Plantation System

Large agricultural estates in the South that depended on enslaved labor to produce cotton, tobacco, sugar, and rice

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