The Terrible Transformation: Travel through the links in the NARRATIVE section to answer the questions below. Restate the questions WITHIN each answer. Use complete sentences.
1. When and where were African slaves first brought to America?
2. By the 18th century, how many Africans were brought to America each year on British ships?
3. Name the first and last English colonies to legalize slavery, and provide the years.
4. Explain the history of the European slave trade with Africa by creating either a 4 to 6 frame "cartoon strip" (cartoons are not always funny) OR by writing a narrative poem. (Use both Europeans Come to Western Africa and The African Slave Trade and the Middle Passage for information.)
5. Why was slavery in America so much more brutal than the slavery that already existed in Africa before the slave trade began?
6. Why did colonists stop using Native Americans and begin using African slaves to work on sugar plantations in the mid to late 1500s?
7. How many Africans were transported to America as slaves during the 300-year Atlantic slave trade?
8. Explain English motives for colonization.
9. Describe the founders of Jamestown and their specific motives.
10. Why did the Jamestown colony nearly fail within its first three years?
11. Jamestown eventually became a successful colony by growing tobacco, which required intensive labor. From where did the first field hands come and WHY?
12. Explain the terms and conditions of indentured servitude.
13. Planters considered the option of exploiting native Americans. What discouraged them from doing so?
14. Africans, like their white counterparts, were at first hired as indentured servants. Where did the model of slavery for life originate in America?
15. According to the Virginia Assembly of 1705, who was considered a slave and what would happen if he/she tried to escape?
16. Why/how did indentured servitude gradually evolve into lifelong slavery by the late 1600s? Outline the events during the 1600s that led to this terrible transformation.
17. Identify the main reason(s) that all 13 English colonies eventually legalized lifelong slavery. What really explains this terrible transformation.
18. How and when did England officially enter the slave trade?
19. What was the Middle Passage? Why was it considered the worst part of the three-part journey?
20. Why is it somewhat ironic that Africans first showed the English how to grow rice in the swampy coastlands of Carolina?
21. Interpret
the quote below. What did Equiano mean?
When you make men slaves, you... compel them to live with you in a
state of war. - Olaudah Equiano, former slave
22. Describe the laws that Carolina authorities created to keep African slaves under control.
23. Critical Thinking: Why did the American Revolution (1775-1781) give African-Americans hope that a victory would mean the end of slavery? When was slavery finally abolished?