History

Many slaves did sue for their freedom, but these freedom suits did not challenge slavery itself. They alleged that the slave was being unlawfully held in bondage. In one 1735 case, Re Negro James, a slave named James petitioned a Massachusetts court for his future freedom, since his master’s will stated that James would be … Read more

There were many instances of violent slave revolts during the American colonial period. These were very desperate actions, because they were doomed to fail. The most famous slave revolts were led by Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner, and Denmark Vesey. The first major slave uprising in America happened in 1739. In the early morning hours of … Read more

In 1800, inspired partly by the biblical story of Moses leading the Israelites out of bondage, Virginia slave Gabriel Prosser planned to attack and seize parts of the city of Richmond, killing as many whites as possible in the process. He spread word of his plan to over one thousand slaves; they gathered, only to … Read more

Prominent among black abolitionists were Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman (ca. 1820-1913), Sojourner Truth (ca. 1797-1883), the Reverend Henry Highland Garnet (1815, 1882), and Frances Harper (1825-1911). The self-trained black scientist Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) was the compiler of The Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemeris, published annually from 1791 to 1802. He sent the … Read more

For free blacks, being free did not mean living freely. State laws in every region restricted the rights of free blacks, often limiting their ability to earn a living. In Maryland and North Carolina, for instance, free blacks had to have special licenses to sell corn, wheat, or tobacco. At all times, free blacks had … Read more

In the 1600s, slaves were bought in Africa for about $25 or its equivalent in goods. They were sold in the colonies for about $150 each. The price depended on their condition, age, abilities, and, in the case of women, their ability to have children. In the early 1800s, the prices of prime field hands … Read more

Slaves were bought and sold at slave markets and auctions, which were held in public. Most auctions were held at the county courthouse. There, licensed traders, who represented the seller or the buyer, would buy or sell slaves. They examined the slaves carefully, looking for whip scars (which meant that the slave might be unruly) … Read more

Slaves during the American colonial period protested their condition in many ways, both subtle and aggressive. Some rebelled on the slave ships by overpowering the captain and crew and escaping back to land. Many ran away as soon as the ship reached its destination. Others refused to eat, or to take medicine if they were … Read more

The extremely unsanitary conditions at sea inevitably caused violent sickness. Because of rampant illness, violence, suicide, and murder, many of the captives, an estimated one to two million, did not survive these cruel voyages. Many others arrived psychologically damaged or near death. An estimated one in every seven captives died during the Middle Passage.

The ocean voyage from Africa to colonial America or the West Indies lasted between five and twelve weeks, and was known as the Middle Passage because it was the middle leg of the slave ship’s three-part trip: from the ship’s country of origin to Africa, then from Africa to the West Indies, then from the … Read more

Captured Africans were taken to the forts and held until there were enough Africans to fill up a ship. The captives were loaded onto slave ships for the trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Most were taken to the West Indies or South America, but about half a million were brought directly to North America. Slaves … Read more

According to census reports for the years 1855 to 1865, one thousand slaves fled each year; however, that number was a small fraction of the total. Slaves in the deep South usually did not run away to the North because it was too far. Instead, they hid in the wilderness. There, groups of runaways that … Read more

Although white slaveholders tried to suppress African culture (they believed slaves could be controlled more easily if they spoke only English and depended on what the slaveholders taught them), slaves created their own African American culture by combining English and Christianity with their African culture. They recognized their African heritage, but accepted America as home. … Read more

Slavery was always controversial. Antonio Montesino and Bartolome de las Casas, sixteenth-century Spanish missionaries in North America, were critical of slavery. In the seventeenth century, English and American Quakers opposed slavery and the slave trade. During the eighteenth century, British abolitionists (people who fought against slavery) spoke out against the slave trade, knowing that their … Read more

Slaves in early colonial America could be bought and sold, and their families could be separated. They were usually not paid for their hard work, could not choose how to make a living, or decide where to live. At the whim of their owners, slaves could be beaten, imprisoned, tortured, or even killed if they … Read more

According to the 1790 census, the first census taken in the new nation, there were 697,897 enslaved blacks in the original thirteen states.

Africans were very religious. Many believed in a supreme god who created the earth. They also believed in ancestor worship, and that the spirit still existed after the death of the individual. About one-fifth of the enslaved Africans held Islamic beliefs. When the Africans came to America, most of their religious practices were banned and … Read more

Before slavery became official, a small population of free black men and women already lived in the North American colonies. Many of these were indentured servants who had completed their service and were freed. Following their freedom, some began to accumulate money, property, and servants. Some slaves purchased their freedom with money earned on the … Read more

Some slaves were prisoners of African tribal and national wars. Slave traders formed trading companies and set up trading stations (known as forts) in areas where they wanted to obtain slaves. Representatives of the companies went to do business with the local chiefs. By plying the chiefs with various trade goods, trinkets, and liquor, the … Read more

In this land of tropical forests, vast deserts, and grasslands, many societies were matrilineal; this means that inheritance and property rights descended through the mother. When a man and woman married, the groom left his family to join his bride’s clan. West Africans believed that spirits were all around them, living in rivers, rocks, animals, … Read more

An indentured servant was any person, white or black, who worked as a servant under a contract-like arrangement for a set period of time, usually seven years. When that time was up, they were given a small amount of money, clothing, or plots of land to assist their transition to freedom.

The first known Africans to inhabit this region were a group of about twenty who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, on a Dutch ship with the English colonists. They were believed to be indentured servants, not slaves.

Slave traders paid for the Africans with either currency or products from Europe. In North and South America, they sold slaves for currency or commodities, such as tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton, which were sold in Europe at a high profit.

In Africa, the family was extremely important. Families might have hundreds of members and consist of several generations. But slave traders had no respect for African families. They would buy or sell a child, parent, or spouse whenever they wanted to, especially if the price was right. As a result, African families were routinely broken … Read more

Long before European slavery, there were powerful, wealthy kingdoms in West Africa. Among them were ancient Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (sometimes spelled Songhay), which flourished between the eighth and sixteenth centuries. They were located in the western Sudan, where the nations of Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Mali stand now. Their wealth came from their … Read more

Slaves were taken from hundreds of African villages and towns on the west coast of Africa and central Africa. By the late 1700s, there were also some taken from southern and eastern Africa. They came from many ethnic groups: Ashanti, Ibo, Hausa, Yoruba, Mandingo, and dozens more. By the 1690s, about 10,000 slaves a year … Read more

Elias Neau, a Frenchman, operated a school for African Americans in New York as early as 1704. The first blacks to be employed as teachers were named Harry and Andrew (last names unknown). They started a school for slaves in South Carolina, where they taught basic reading and writing. The first black school in U.S. … Read more

Many West Africans were skilled farmers and artists. In South Carolina, where slaves became a majority of the population, planters sought slaves from particular regions of Africa who possessed desired skills, such as the knowledge of rice cultivation, boat building, or coastal navigation. Some tribes made textiles and baskets; others worked with animal skins and … Read more

In the early eighteenth century, a slave taught Reverend Cotton Mather how to inject a patient with a smallpox vaccine, which was a serum made from a weaker form of the disease. A perfected version of that method is still used today to make vaccines for many illnesses, including the flu. Another slave, known only … Read more

For field slave families, home was a small one or two room cabin where as many as twelve people might live. Archaeologists excavating seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sites found that slave dwellings in those early years of slavery had clay walls and thatch roofs, similar to those in West Africa. By the nineteenth century, log cabins … Read more

At night, on Saturday afternoons, and on Sundays, most slaves were allowed to go hunting and fishing, do personal chores, work in their own gardens, and get together with other slaves. If they had a pass from their owner, they could visit friends on nearby plantations.

Most slaves treated themselves and other slaves and rarely saw white doctors when they got sick. Slaves were quite successful in treating everything from coughs to backaches and snake bites with natural remedies, and many of these remedies were also sought by whites. Slave women acted as midwives, handling the birth of most of the … Read more

By age five or six, children would do small tasks such as helping in the big house or in the field fetching water, picking up stones, or working in the trash gang. At the age of ten or twelve, children, both boys and girls, were given a regular field routine.

Virginia was the first colony to create slave codes, or laws, and the other colonies followed suit. These laws stated that slaves were property, not people, and could be sold at any time; that they could not marry, learn how to read or write, hold unauthorized religious services, or gather for any reason without permission. … Read more

A plantation is a large farm. In colonial America, plantations were found mostly in the southern colonies because they had the largest tracts of rich farmland. Plantations were often built alongside rivers, as it was faster and easier to ship goods by water than by land. The plantations needed many people to work the land, … Read more

In the North and South, many slave owners were whites who owned small farms. Usually there were about twenty slaves on these farms. Other southern slave holders owned large plots of land, or plantations, on which they grew a crop that they sold.

Although no one knows for sure when the first Africans came to what is now the continental United States, there is solid evidence of some early black explorers in the area. One of Christopher Columbus’ companions on his voyage in 1492 was Pedro Alonzo Nino, a man who appears to have been of African descent. … Read more

Typically, slaves were given very small amounts of food, which might include meat, flour, milk, lard, cornmeal, and greens. Throughout the South, their major staple was corn. Although rice was available, it was worth more, and so was saved for export (or sale abroad). Slaves ate corn with pork and beef and supplemented the meat … Read more

Clergymen in favor of slavery found passages in the Bible that they believed supported slavery. The most frequently used was Genesis 9:25-27. In these passages, Noah, upset by the misbehavior of his son Ham, who was thought to be black, cursed all the descendants of Ham’s son Canaan. The curse was that they would be … Read more

Virginia made slavery legal in 1661 and passed a law the following year that stated that children born to a slave mother would also be slaves. During the 1600s, slavery based on race slowly became a way of life throughout all thirteen American colonies. By the beginning of the 1700s, new laws had been created … Read more

Slavery is the practice in which people are treated as property. A slave is owned by a master, made to do work for no pay, and can be sold or traded to someone else at any time. Slavery was known in almost every ancient civilization, and society, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, Ancient India, Ancient … Read more

In the South, most slaves worked on cotton, tobacco, and rice plantations. Slaves also worked in Louisiana’s salt mines, rope factories in Kentucky, the iron factories of Virginia, and the North Carolina cotton mills. In the North, the slaves worked in cities, on farms, and on ships. On plantations, field slaves (or field hands, as … Read more

Colonial America itself began in 1607 when Englishmen set up a colony (a settlement started by a government in another country) at Jamestown, Virginia, followed by others on the eastern coast of North America. Under the king’s rule, these colonies were still considered to be a part of England (also known as Great Britain). By … Read more

Human slavery began in prehistoric times. Originally, it had nothing to do with race: It was a system of using prisoners of war as servants or laborers for those who had captured them. Other slaves were criminals or people who could not pay their debts. Ancient Greeks, Romans, Africans, and Egyptians enslaved whomever they conquered. … Read more

By the end of the sixteenth century, Holland had become the leading African slave trader, followed by England and France after 1700. In the 1800s, the Danes, Swedes, and Germans all participated in the slave trade.

One of the most significant jazz musicians and composers, Duke Ellington (1899-1974) began his performance career playing jazz for white audiences at Harlem’s Cotton Club in 1927. It was at this popular night spot that Duke first expressed the music of a “black experience,” yet his popularity proved that his music was for everyone. By … Read more

In the 60s, Cree singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie was one of America’s favorite folk artists. With her passionate lyrics and dynamic singing style, she electrified audiences with her songs of protest. In many of her most popular songs, such as “Native American Child,” “Now That the Buffalo’s Gone,” and “My Country ‘Tis of Thy People You’re … Read more

In 1992, the small Mashantucket Pequot tribe opened the Foxwoods Casino and Resort in Connecticut. The business was such a success that, within a few years, it was bringing in almost $1 billion a year. In addition to helping other tribes establish their own businesses, the tribe has used its profits to build a $193 … Read more

Reservation residents have to follow laws made by the U.S. government, but not those made by states. Many states outlaw casinos or at least place complicated rules on how they can be run. But because tribes do not have to follow state laws, they can establish casinos on reservations with little interference. Aside from some … Read more

Across North America, tribal governments and activist groups are trying to help make the lives of reservation Native Americans better. They have created many programs dedicated to improving the housing, education, and employment opportunities available on reservations. Many of these programs are funded by the federal government, but others are financed by business concerns run … Read more

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, many young Indians joined together to protest the way Indians were treated by non-Indians and the U.S. government. Their efforts became known as the Red Power movement. The name was drawn from the Black Power movement, a similar fight that was then being waged by African American activists. … Read more

In the past, the U.S. government had always dictated to Native Americans how they should behave, what they should learn in school, what jobs they should work, and how their lands should be used. The policy of self-determination of the 1970s reversed this thinking. Self determination meant that Native Americans should determine for themselves how … Read more

Repatriation refers to one of the issues most important to Native Americans today, the return to tribes of ancient Indian bones and artifacts. In the past, non-Natives freely dug up Indian burial sites, and many of the remains they uncovered ended up in museums. To Native Americans, museum displays of their ancestors’ skeletons were deeply … Read more

Throughout American history, the United States has taken over lands claimed by Indians without consulting the peoples who lived there. As a result, in the twentieth century many Native Americans took the United States to court, insisting that the country give them their land back or at least pay them fairly for it. Some Indian … Read more

In July 1996, a college student stumbled upon something remarkable on the banks of the Columbia River in Washington State: a human skeleton that was more than 9,000 years old. Named Kennewick Man after a nearby town, five tribes in the region claim the skeleton as an ancestor. While non-Native scientists made plans to study … Read more

Pan-Indianism is a term that refers to Native American peoples from many different tribes working together as though they were one people. This idea is fairly new. Before non-Natives came to North America, there were at least 300 tribes and many more smaller groups. Some were allies, but many were enemies. As a result, when … Read more

Louise Erdrich (Chippewa, born 1954): In best-sellers such as Love Medicine and Tracks, Erdrich writes stories about three generations of Indians living in North Dakota. Joy Harjo (Creek, born 1951): Harjo is an acclaimed poet whose books include She Had Some Horses and In Mad Love and War. With her band Poetic Justice, she also … Read more

In 1989, the U.S. Congress passed a law calling for the creation of a new museum as a “living memorial to Native Americans and their traditions.” Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the new National Museum of the American Indian is built next to the U.S. Capitol Building on the last remaining plot on the National … Read more

Director Chris Eyre (left) and writer Sherman Alexie discuss a scene in Smoke Signals (1998), the first feature film written, produced, and directed by Native Americans. Tantoo Cardinal (Metis, born 1950): One of Canada’s most celebrated actresses, Cardinal has appeared it the films Black Robe and Legends of the Fall and the television movies Lakota … Read more

Soon after the film was invented, an entire industry grew up around westerns, films about Indian-white conflicts on the Plains. These movies almost always depicted Plains Indians as villainous, bloodthirsty savages. Audiences were encouraged to cheer when whites killed them and took over their lands. Beginning in the late 1960s, non-Native American filmmakers began to … Read more

An activist belonging to the American Indian Movement, Leonard Peltier was convicted in 1976 of murdering two FBI agents on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. Many people around the world believe that Peltier is innocent. Seeing him as a political prisoner of the U.S. … Read more

Many non-Native Americans believe that Native Americans are a “vanishing race,” a group of people rooted so firmly in the past that they are doomed to die out. In fact, the opposite is true. The Native American population throughout the continent is on the rise. Native Americans, too, are working harder than ever to make … Read more

Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Northern Cheyenne, born 1933): Campbell’s jewelry combines Native American and Japanese traditions. In addition to being a well-known jewelry designer, he is a distinguished U.S. Senator from Montana. Harry Fonseca (Maidu, born 1946): Fonseca is best known for his humorous paintings of Coyote, a character in many Native American myths whose misadventures … Read more

The Native American Church is a religion that combines some Christian beliefs with the Native American peyote religion that grew up in the nineteenth century. Peyote is a part of a cactus that grows wild in the Southwest. By eating peyote, members of the Native American Church have visions that they believe bring them closer … Read more

On April 1, 1999, Nunavut became a new territory of Canada. This area, which had been the eastern half of the Northwest Territories, is the home of most of Canada’s Inuit, the native group sometimes called Eskimos. With the creation of Nunavut (meaning “our land” in Inuktitut, the Inuit language), the Inuit have been given … Read more

Since 1924, any Native American born in the United States has been legally considered a citizen. Native Americans that belong to tribes recognized by the federal government are also citizens of these tribal nations. Many Native Americans, though, consider themselves tribal citizens first, and U.S. citizens second. Some Iroquois travel the globe without a U.S. … Read more

By and large, Native Americans work at the same types of jobs as all other Americans. A high percentage, though, are factory workers, repair people, and other skilled technicians. Many Native Americans have gone into these fields because, beginning in the 1950s, the government offered them free or low-cost vocational training. A large number of … Read more

As of 1990 nearly half of all Native Americans in the United States lived west of the Mississippi River. The states with the biggest Native American populations were Oklahoma (13.2 percent), California (12.7 percent), Arizona (10.7 percent), and New Mexico (7.0 percent). Only about one in every five Native Americans lived on one of the … Read more

The poverty on most reservations is rooted in the past. In earlier centuries, as land was taken away from Native Americans, so were their traditional ways of feeding their families. Many people had difficulty finding a new way to make a living on a reservation. Much of the land on reservations was of very poor … Read more

The U.S. census of 1990 found that the average Native American family makes about $21,750, far below the average income of all American families ($35,225). About 27 percent of Native American families live in poverty. Native Americans on reservations are the most impoverished. Just over half of all reservation residents live below the poverty level … Read more

An Native American group has federal recognition when the U.S. government defines it as a tribe. Having federal recognition is important because only federally recognized tribes can receive certain funds and benefits reserved for Native Americans. Some Native American groups that consider themselves tribes do not have federal recognition because they do not meet the … Read more

The 1990 census listed four tribes with populations of more than 100,000: the Cherokee at 308,000, the Navajo at 219,000, the Ojibwa (also known as the Chippewa) at 104,000, and the Sioux at 103,000. In addition to about 31,000 Native Americans, Alaska is the home of people from two other native groups, the Inuit (44,000) … Read more

When Alaska became a state in 1959, the U.S. government took control of more than one-fourth of the new state’s land. Much of the area was claimed by native Alaskans, but they were given no money for it. In 1971, Congress tried to right this wrong by passing the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. This … Read more

Although they now generally make most of their income from wage work, many native people still hunt for their livelihood. But, with their introduction to new goods, the way they hunt has changed. Rifles or guns that shoot out a harpoon with an explosive charge have replaced the spears and harpoons formerly made by hand. … Read more

In the late 1950s, the Inuits of the small community of Cape Dorset in Nunavut, Canada were poor and often hungry. Their fortunes changed when James Houston, a non-Native writer, introduced them to the art of printmaking. Although this art form was new to the Cape Dorset Inuit, they took to it immediately. In their … Read more

Some Native Americans are bilingual. They speak English with non-Native Americans but might use their native language with relatives and other tribe members. In some Native American communities, however, a Native American language is rarely heard. Many Native Americans stopped using their own languages because of pressure from U.S. officials. Until recently, for instance, Native … Read more

In the 1700s, many Aboriginal women in Canada married white fur traders. From their children emerged a new Subarctic group known as the Metis, after the French word for “mixed.” Mostly of mixed Cree and French ancestry, the Metis developed a unique culture that blended Native and white ways. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, … Read more

Whites first arrived in the eastern Subarctic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Encounters came later in western regions. Many Subarctic groups did not meet whites until the nineteenth century. The first whites in their lands were traders. They were soon followed by missionaries who wanted to convert the Natives to Christianity. Other whites began … Read more

Aside from new trade goods, non-Native traders brought with them European diseases. Like other native populations, the Inuit suffered many deaths because of these foreign germs. Others were killed in violent encounters with non-natives. The Aleut were particularly threatened by the Russian traders who came to their lands in the 1740s. Over time, trading with … Read more

In the mid-1800s, Catholic nuns came to Chipewyan territory to teach the Native Americans about their religion. At the same time, the nuns instructed the Native Americans in a new craft, floral embroidery. Chipew yan women already decorated their clothes with dyed porcupine quills, but they were difficult to work with. They found the thread … Read more

A powwow is a festival where Native Americans from different tribes come together to celebrate their heritage. The main attraction at powwows are exhibitions of Native American singing and dancing. Especially exciting are fancy dancing competitions, during which elaborately costumed dancers display spectacular movements inspired by traditional dances. Some powwows are small gatherings that last … Read more

Every year, at the end of July, Fairbanks, Alaska, hosts the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics, an event that draws Inuit and Indian athletes from throughout the state. The participants compete in traditional games and contests, including: The Ear Pull: A three-foot-long loop of string is placed around the right ear of two competitors sitting on the … Read more

According to the 1990 census, there are about 1,900,000 Native Americans in the United States, approximately .75 percent of the total U.S. population. The Native American population has grown steadily throughout the twentieth century. It now stands at more than four times its lowest point in about 1900. Native Americans then numbered only 400,000, just … Read more

Canada’s 1996 census found that about 2.75 percent of its citizens belong to three different native groups. It counted approximately 535,000 First Nations, 41,000 Inuit, and 210,000 Metis. The descendants of First Nations and European (mostly French) traders, the Metis developed their own unique culture in western Canada during the nineteenth century.

To escape the icy cold, the Inuit had to spend much of the winter indoors, but they made the most of this hardship. Comfortable in their warm homes, winter became the season of socializing. Families gathered for feasts and singing and dancing. Both children and adults also loved telling stories and playing games. Inuit hunters … Read more

A song duel was the Inuit’s unique way of settling disputes. Instead of fighting, two people who were angry with one another came before an audience and took turns singing songs that pointed out the others’ faults and weaknesses. Encouraged by the hoots and hollers of the crowd, the singers tried to outdo one another … Read more

Except for those in the far north, the Inuit used igloos, dome-shaped dwellings made from bricks of snow, only as temporary houses while they were on hunting expeditions. Their permanent homes were winter houses built into the side of a hill from sod, wood, bones, or stones. Like igloos, these homes were cleverly constructed to … Read more

To travel long distances fast, the Inuit used sleds pulled by dogs. For thousands of years, the Inuit bred and trained dogs (later called huskies) that were perfect for this work. Their dogs had four inches of fur that kept them warm even in blizzards. They were also strong. Working in teams of seven or … Read more

In Inuit legend, Sedna was the keeper of the sea creatures the Inuit hunted. As a young woman, against her father’s wishes, she married a dog and lived with him on an island. Angry at her betrayal, her father killed her dog-husband and compelled Sedna to sail home with him. On the way, a storm … Read more

Each animal required a different hunting technique. To hunt caribou, for instance, hunters set up two rows of scarecrow-like figures made of snow. Making as much noise as they could, women and children chased a herd into the area between the scarecrows, which led to a corral or a lake, where hunters waited to spear … Read more