Random Facts

Question 1

What were Northerners initially fighting over?

Answer 1

To preserve the Union.

Question 2

Who was the President of the Confederacy

Answer 2

Jefferson Davis

Question 3

Who was the Vice President of the Confederacy

Answer 3

Alexander Stevenson

Question 4

What was Lincolns promise in his 1st Inaugural Address to the nation?

Answer 4

I pledge to preserve the Union

Question 5

How did Lincoln manipulate the South to initiate an act of war against the North?

Answer 5

Lincoln announced that he would “protect all forms of Federal Property.”

Question 6

What Fort did the South fire upon to initiate the Civil War on April 12, 1861?

Answer 6

Fort Sumter

Question 7

What happened during John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry?

Answer 7

In late 1859, John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, went to the town of Harper’s Valley, VA to free black slaves by force. In doing so, he capture the prominent members of the community. He had expected the slaves to join his group but unfortunately this was not the case. Under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee, the army stormed the building that Brown’s raid was held up in and took him into custody. Afterwards he was charged with treason against the state of Virginia, murder, and slave insurrection. He was found guilty and later executed.

Question 8

What is the significance of John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry?

Answer 8

Northerner’s felt it was foreshadowing the end of slavery
Southerners’s became paranoid that the actions of these extreme abolitionists were the foreshadow to the end of their economic means of life. In some ways the actions they took in response to prevent the North from doing so became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Question 9

What was the Confederate’s plan to win the war?

Answer 9

Cotton Diplomacy - it was the diplomatic strategy for the Confederate state to coerces the UK and the French into becoming their financial backers for the War against the north. They implemented a trade embargo in order to hurt their economies enough so UK and France give them loans for war materials.

Question 10

What are the result of the Confederate’s Cotton Diplomacy?

Answer 10

The plan backfired because the European nations wanted to remain neutral in the U.S. civil war. European nations thus became to look elsewhere for cotton. Cotton Diplomacy evolved into a self-harming practice preventing cotton to be sold to said markets.

Question 11

Who said, “Cotton is King” in 1858

Answer 11

Senator James Henry Hammond (D - SC)

Question 12

What was the Nat Turner’s Rebellion?

Answer 12

From August 21-22, 1831, Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, VA that resulted in the death of 55-65 people.

Question 13

What was the impact of Nat Turner’s Rebellion?

Answer 13

It resulted in the fear from southerners that more slave rebellions would arise. This led to many Southern state passing laws that prohibited the education of slaves, right to assembly, civil rights, etc.

Question 14

What are the two forms of slaves?

Answer 14

Chattel Slavery and Limbry Slavery

Question 15

What is Chattel Slavery?

Answer 15

1. Concubines
2. House Servants
3. Miners,
4. Soldiers

Question 16

What are Limbry Slaves?

Answer 16

1. Concubines
2. House Servants
3. Laborers

Question 17

Where did the majority of African slaves go to in the Americas?

Answer 17

The Caribbean and South America

Question 18

What is the origin of Plantation Agriculture?

Answer 18

Mediterranean Sea

Question 19

What African islands did slaves go to?

Answer 19

Canary and Madeira

Question 20

What was the treatment of African Slaves Like from trapping to sale?

Answer 20

1. branding of slaves.
2. loading of slaves into tight ships.
3. slaves went through the middle passage to the Americas in the tight ships with little room
4. Once the slaves were to arrive in the Americas, they were inspected
5. Finally they were sold

Question 21

What are the two kinds of Cotton?

Answer 21

Sea Island Cotton and Upland Cotton

Question 22

When was the Cotton Gin invented?

Answer 22

1793

Question 23

What were jobs for House Servants?

Answer 23

“body servants”: butlers, cooks, laundresses, nanny, maids, nursemaids, and seamstresses

Question 24

What were jobs for Skilled Laborer Slaves?

Answer 24

blacksmiths, carpenters, cooper and iron workers, joiners, potters, shipwrights, tinsmiths, wheelwrights, and white smiths

Question 25

What are some Characteristics of Slave Owners?

Answer 25

1. 1/4 of the south’s white families owned slaves
2. Most held between 3-5 slaves
3. 1/8 of slave owners were called “planters” and Planters owned 20+ slaves.
4. 3% of slave owners owned the majority of slaves in the South. Many of these men were politicians

Question 26

What are cultural forms of Resistance by Slaves?

Answer 26

1. Food-ways
2. folktales
3. Language
4. Naming traditions
5. Musical traditions
6. Religious traditions
   Playing dumb, play stick, hide, work slow, work stoppages, break tools, abuse animals, steal, arson, infanticide, suicide, poisoning, murder

Question 27

Why was the practice of slavery important to the U.S. Economy?

Answer 27

By 1860, cotton accounted for almost 60% of American exports with a value of 200 million dollars per year.

Question 28

What are some activities Abolitionist’s took to promote the end of slavery?

Answer 28

1. Meetings
2. Rallies
3. Newspapers
4. Door-to-Door Campaigns
5. Literature
6. Direct Mail
7. Petitions

Question 29

What was the impact of Abolitionist activities?

Answer 29

North: increased anger, awareness, guilt, resentment, and more illegal activities

South: increased anger, defensiveness, pro-slavery sentiment and the rise of militant pro-slavery

Nation: increased tension

US gov: increased tension and “gag rule” implemented resulting in banning abolitionist literature from the mail

Emergence of the slave power conspiracy theory

Question 30

When did the US-Mexican War occur?

Answer 30

1846-1848

Question 31

What was the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo?

Answer 31

Signed on September 2, 1848 thus ending the US-Mexican War.
Territory gained: all or parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming
Also recognized the border of Texas to be at the Rio Grande River.

Question 32

What was the Gadsden Purchase

Answer 32

signed on December 30, 1853 and ratified by Congress April 25, 1854
~30,000 square miles for $10 million later became part of Arizona and New mexico

Question 33

Presidential Election (1848)

Answer 33

Whig Party: Zachary Taylor - won

Democratic Party: Lewis Cass

Question 34

When was the Californian Gold Rush?

Answer 34

1849

Question 35

Who were the “fire-eaters” in congress?

Answer 35

The fire-eaters were a group of extremist pro-slavery Southern politicians who urged the separation of southern states into a new nation. They sought to re-open the international slave trade, which had been illegal since 1808

Question 36

What was the Compromise of 1850?

Answer 36

In order to prevent the dissolution of the Union, it was necessary to form a compromise with the Southern states.
Contents:
1. California joins the Union as a free state.
2. Reduce the size of Texas.
3. Federal government assumes Texas’s debt
4. Abolish slave trade in Washington D.C.
5. Keep slavery legal in D.C.
6. Deny Congress the right to regulate interstate slave trade.
7. Create a new federal fugitive slave law

Question 37

What was the Federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1850?

Answer 37

In order to prevent the South from ceding from the Union a compromise was made. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was a part of the compromise. Here are some important features of the law:

1. U.S. fugitive slave commissioners were created to capture escaped slaves
2. Proof of ownership over a black man was almost not needed.
3. Suspected runaway slave’s was not allowed to testify because he does not possess the right to do so.
4. Commissioner’s fee for returning black man was $10 and $5 for freeing black man.
5. No jury trial to determine status of black man

Question 38

What was the Impact of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850?

Answer 38

1. Emergence of profession fugitive slave catchers
2. New laws in the North that did not promote freedom
3. African-American communities in the North moved farther North to Canada to prevent becoming a slave.
4. Vigilance committees were created to be on the lookout of runaway slaves.
5. Harriet beecher Stowe’s book impact on the anti-slavery movement

Question 39

Presidential Election (1852)

Answer 39

Democratic Party: Franklin Pierce - won
Free Soil Party: John Hale
Whig Party: Winfield Scott, Millard Fillmore, and Daniel Webster

Question 40

What were the Dreams of Southern Manifest Destiny?

Answer 40

To expand slavery all the way through the Americas