American History through American Lives

What is humanity? (1600s-1800s)

For the period highlighting the 1600s and 1700s we will answer the question: “What is Humanity?” There are so many nameless faces and lost voices of people who were enslaved from this time period. We will learn through narratives of enslaved people and primary sources about selling, trading and abuse of enslaved African people in America. We will also discuss: What is color? What is ethnicity? What is race? The 1600s and 1700s in United States history were centuries of pain for so many people; particularly enslaved Africans. In 1607, Jamestown Virginia was first settled;¹⁶ however, in 1619, the first African people were brought against their will to the shores of this settlement with other indentured servants on a ship called the “White Lion”.¹⁷ There were 32 slaves who arrived, but shortly after there were only 25, as not all survived.¹⁸ Between 1620 and the 1640s, we begin to see the deliberate distinctions written between European Americans and enslaved Africans.¹⁹ More specifically, we see this begin in General Court Transcriptions from 1640 regarding runaway slaves.²⁰ These legal documents and transcripts are when we begin to see American racial slavery take form in the lives of people like John Punch.

The Freedom Struggle: Legalized Racial Slavery, John Punch and Bacon’s Rebellion

John Punch was an enslaved man in Virginia during the 1630s and 1640s.²¹ During the time of Punch’s enslavement, he attempted to run away to Maryland. Punch was captured along with two indentured servants who were of European descent.²² According to the documents held by the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Punch’s case took place on July 9, 1640.²³ Punch was sentenced to “servitude for life”,²⁴ unlike the European indentured servants he ran away with who only had time added to their terms.²⁵ This case was the first documented account of what would turn into legalization of slavery and official slave codes in the United States.²⁶ Teaching John Punch is teaching the beginning of the enslavement of African Americans in the United States and one of the first points we can teach students about the history of United States slavery through primary source documents. There are many key events following the John Punch case; such as Bacon’s Rebellion, which became the foundation for the uprising of the oppressed. In 1676 Bacon’s Rebellion was an uprising comprised of not only enslaved Africans, but also poor European indentured Servants, and wound up clashing with the colonial elite on grounds of protections and land.²⁷ Teaching events like Bacon’s Rebellion allows us to teach the African American Freedom Struggle leading into the Civil Rights movement in a connected way throughout history.²⁸ Between 1700 and 1750, regional culture developed among enslaved people working to survive, and slavery began to spread and reach farther across the states.²⁹ This was possible through men like Richard Allen, the founder of the African American Methodist church and many others who contributed to this culture.³⁰ These facts about slavery during this time make the following biographical stories all the more remarkable to teach.

Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) was an African born woman, who was captured and sold into slavery in the United States.³¹ In terms of accomplishments, Wheatley is one of the most inspiring stories to teach of this time period. In researching Wheatley, the suffering endured by enslaved Africans in the United States is painfully clear. Through her strength Wheatley became “the first African American and second woman…to publish a book of poems”.³² She stood up to those who questioned her intelligence.³³ People stood in opposition to the inhumanity of slavery. According to encyclopedia Britannica, “Wheatley’s work was frequently cited by abolitionists to combat the charge of innate intellectual inferiority among blacks and to promote educational opportunities for African Americans”.³⁴ The National Women’s History Museum talks about how her poetry focused on an array of topics pertaining to her personage.³⁵ Wheatley would be followed by people like Harriet Jacobs and many others who went on to write about their lives. Her work inspired so many other to share your mind and work with the world to rise up against oppression.

Benjamin Banneker

Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) was born and lived in a county of Baltimore and was one of few free African Americans in the area he lived.³⁶ Teaching about Banneker helps students connect so many accomplishments and events in history. He was an “author, scientist, mathematician, farmer, astronomer, publisher and urban planner”.³⁷ Not only was Banneker an extremely accomplished man in this works, surveyed and planned out what would become Washington D.C.³⁸ After surveying the land, a co-worker sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson about Banneker.³⁹ According to Monticello’s Encyclopedia, Jefferson, wrote to Banneker seeming surprised by the notion of someone of African descent displaying intelligence.⁴⁰ The encyclopedia article states Banneker composed a response letter August 19, 1791, arguing eloquently "...however variable we may be in Society or religion, however diversified in Situation or colour, we are all of the Same Family…”.⁴¹ Teaching about Banneker helps highlight the opposition of African Americans against those oppressing them, and can be done so using many primary sources. These sources help give a true depiction of who Banneker was. 

Gabriel Prosser

Gabriel Prosser is the end of the 1700s in a single-human life. Prosser was born into the condition of enslavement in Henrico, VA in 1776.⁴² Teaching about the life and rebellion of Prosser helps teach the concept of rebellion and link it to other events. Prosser worked for multiple slave owners and eventually met others, with whom he inspired a revolt.⁴³ He planned a revolt which ended up unsuccessful due to a storm and enslaved participants who feared for their lives and told the slave-owners.⁴⁴ Prosser fled, along with some of the other conspirators and got away only to be sold to the authorities shortly after.⁴⁵ Prosser was tried and executed.⁴⁶ The freedom struggle shaped Prosser’s life and oppressive violence forced him to fight back. Injustice, violence and oppression continued; this is how the next few centuries, began to take form.

The Revolution: African American Soldiers and Crispus Attucks

During the end of the 1700s, the Revolutionary War had occurred, while enslaved people still fought to survive, and many of whom fought in the war.⁴⁷ “…Slaves were running away—to fight with the British and win their own freedom or to ally with the Patriots and win freedom for their country as well as themselves”.⁴⁸ This concept of freedom was the defining point of this century, and is displayed in the lives of people like Crispus Attucks. Attucks fled his conditions of enslavement in hopes of achieving his freedom through the revolution.⁴⁹ During the Boston Massacre, Attucks “…became the first martyr for freedom”.⁵⁰ Attucks was a defining piece of the end of this century. The Boston Massacre and the Revolution are often taught without emphasis on African American soldiers, when that should be a focus. Crispus Attucks became known in the beginning of the Anti-Slavery Movement in the United States.⁵¹