Unit 2: Freedom, Slavery, and Resistance  

Unit 2 Vocabulary

The most important concepts for unit 1.

“One of the more important functions of history is to contextualize the past…(and) understand quite clearly that the past was dynamic and not static…” - Historian Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens

Unit Vocabulary Guide

This handout is paired with the Unit 2 “Essential Must Knows” document (link). I have identified 99 key terms from the College Board’s Course and Exam Description (CED) for Unit 2.

Vocab “Version A” & “Version B” Explained

Vocab Version A: I do not teach this unit in the exact College Board order (see my sequencing approach below). I agree with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens that clear definitions of race and a chronological approach are the best ways to engage students and confront common misconceptions about race and the institution of slavery. Ms. Ella Baker’s first rule was to “meet people where they are.”

“Version A” also includes 37 extra pages aimed at processing the size and scope of the transatlantic slave trade. 12.5 million people were taken from Africa, this is a vocabulary fact that students must know for this course. 12,500,000 is an almost unfathomably large number. After the space for the topic 2.3 vocab, the “Version A” packet includes 37 pages which each contain 50,000 dots. Each page has either a primary source image of a person who was trafficked on the Middle Passage or a quote from Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography. There are nearly 1,900,000 dots in the packet; this is only 15% of the total number of people who experienced the Middle Passage, which corresponds to another must-know statistic: 15% of the people died on the journey and never made it to the Americas. Students are informed at the end of the dots pages that another 216 pages of dots would be needed to represent all the lives who suffered through the journey. Instead of the normal short-answer claims, students are given space to process this information. Yes, this is a lot of extra printing, but my students have found it to be impactful. “Version A” is 70 pages. I print pages 1-56 for Part 1 (my school copier can staple up to 100 pages so it works). Part 2 starts on page 57 and goes through page 70.

Version B: This is in the order of the College Board sequencing and does not include the extra 37 “processing pages” of 1.8 million dots. It totals 30 pages.

MY APPROACH TO UNIT 2 TOPIC SEQUENCING

Ms. Ella Baker’s #1 Rule for educating & Empowering: “

“Meet the people where thEY ARE”

Historian Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens on how she approaches the topic of slavery:

“I’ve had students share their insights with me about slavery, and unfortunately, much of what they know is either wrong or misinformed…One of the more important functions of history is to contextualize the past…(and) understand quite clearly that the past was dynamic and not static… One of the best methods for addressing the proverbial elephant in the room is to first provide students with a clear definition of race and its social construction. Often, students believe race is a biological concept and find it difficult to view it as an idea that has undergone transformation in different regions and areas…Initially, I introduce the concept of race to my students. Secondly, I link American slavery to other international institutions of slavery, especially those that emerged in the Atlantic world… Lastly, I follow a chronological and region-based approach that demonstrates how salient slavery was to the United States of America and its government through the exploration of various industries…” (Dr. Cooper Owens interviewed by Dr. Hasan Kwame Jefferies, Teaching Hard History, 2019)

My classroom experience aligns with what Dr. Cooper Owens describes in this passage. Our society has not adequately taught students about slavery before they enroll in our class. It is necessary for them to “unlearn” misconceptions about slavery and the history of race in America. Many students believe that race is a fixed concept and that the institution of slavery was static. This can be challenging to confront, especially when the College Board sequencing introduces the first sources on slavery in the United States through the mid-19th-century Amistad trial and the auction block in the decade before the Civil War. These sources present race as a deeply entrenched concept rather than as the product of a three-hundred-year process. Understanding this process helps students realize that what unfolded was not predetermined, but rather the result of centuries of inventing race through legal codes to justify the accumulation of immense wealth at a tremendous human cost.

Topic Sequencing

I employ a blend of the thematic approach with a chronological focus, which I have found helpful in supporting student understanding and their ability to contextualize and analyze this content.

PART I (51 vocab terms)

  • 2.1-2.4: The first African American explorers through the Middle Passage (I save the Amistad trial for 2.19)

  • 2.8: The invention of race and early colonial law

  • 2.6 and 2.9: Labor, Economics, and Culture

  • 2.11: The Stono Rebellion (our first deep dive into a specific example of overt resistance)

  • 2.7: Context on African Americans and the Revolution before we investigate race, slavery, and U.S. law

  • 2.5: The cotton boom changes everything: the decline of the Middle Passage but the expansion of slavery and family separations

  • 2.17: African Americans in Indigenous Territory, which connects to the 2.5 cotton boom, expansion of slavery, and Trail of Tears

(Test Part 1)

PART II (49 vocab terms)

  • 2.16: Brazil fits nicely before maroons because 2.15 describes Brazilian maroons

  • 2.15: Maroons fit before the Haitian Revolution because they helped to initiate and support that revolution

  • 2.12: Haitian Revolution: Blackness redefined—an event Frederick Douglass called the most significant event in Black History

  • 2.13: Resistance and uprisings in the U.S. (I add Gabriel’s Rebellion to the list)

  • 2.10: Black Pride and Self-Identity and Free Black Communities

  • 2.18: Debates on emigration

  • 2.14: Resistance from Black Women (the original feminists in American history)

  • 2.22: Gender and Slave Narratives

  • 2.19: Black Political Thought: Radical Resistance

  • 2.20: Underground Railroad

  • 2.21: Photography and Black leaders

  • 2.23-2.24: The Civil War and the story and memory of emancipation, including Juneteenth and other Freedom Days