AP African American Studies

• Black nationalism is a political ideology advocating for the establishment of separate states or territories for people of African descent.
• • Founded in Florida in 1565, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of African American and European origin in the U.S. 
  • Beginning in the 17th century, enslaved refugees escaping Georgia and the Carolinas fled to St. Augustine, seeking asylum in Spanish Florida, which offered freedom to enslaved people who converted to Catholicism.
• • In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida established a fortified settlement under the leadership of Francisco Menéndez, an enslaved Senegambian who fought against the English in the Yamasee War and found refuge in St. Augustine. 
  • The settlement, called Fort Mose, was the first sanctioned free Black town in what is now the U.S.
• • The emancipation from slavery offered by Spanish Florida to slaves fleeing the British colonies inspired the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina in 1739. 
  • Led by Jemmy, an enslaved man from the Angola region, nearly 100 enslaved African Americans set fire to plantations and marched toward sanctuary in Spanish Florida.
• • After the Stono Rebellion, in 1740, the British province of South Carolina passed a restrictive slave code that prohibited African Americans from 
  • Organizing
  • Drumming
  • Learning to read
  • Moving abroad, including to other colonial territories.

   

  • One month later, British colonial forces invaded Florida, eventually seizing and destroying Fort Mose.
• • The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was the only uprising of enslaved people that resulted in overturning a colonial, slaveholding government. 
  • It transformed a European colony (Saint-Domingue) into a Black republic free of slavery (Haiti) 
  • Created the second independent nation in the Americas, after the U.S..
• The Haitian Revolution had a broad impact, including causing France to lose the most lucrative colony in the Caribbean.
• The cost of fighting Haitians prompted Napoleon to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States, nearly doubling the size of the U.S. and increasing the land available for the expansion of slavery.
• France temporarily abolished slavery throughout the empire, in colonies like Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana, from 1794 to 1802.
• The destruction of the plantation slavery complex in Haiti shifted opportunities in the market for sugar production to the U.S., Cuba, and Brazil.
• The Haitian Revolution brought an influx of White planters and enslaved Black refugees to U.S. cities like Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia and increased anxieties about the spread of slave revolts.
• Afro-descendants who escaped slavery to establish free communities were known as maroons.
• • During the Haitian Revolution, maroons disseminated information across disparate groups and organized attacks. 
  • Many of the enslaved freedom fighters were former soldiers who were enslaved during civil wars in the Kingdom of Kongo and sent to Haiti
• • For some African Americans, Haiti’s independence and abolition of slavery highlighted the unfulfilled promises of the American Revolution.
• • The Haitian Revolution inspired uprisings in other African diaspora communities, such as the Louisiana Slave Revolt (1811), one of the largest on U.S. soil, and the Malê Uprising of Muslim slaves (1835), one of the largest revolts in Brazil.
• • The legacy of the Haitian Revolution had an enduring impact on Black political thinking, serving as a symbol of Black freedom and sovereignty.
• Article one of the document states, “The people inhabiting the island formerly called St. Domingo, hereby agree to form themselves into a free state sovereign and independent of any other power in the universe, under the name of empire Hayti.” In article two, the text revealed the region's enslaved history.

  region's
• In his speech, Douglass discussed the character and history of Haiti, its evolution from slave colony to free and independent republic, and its relevance to African Americans. He expressed optimism about the country's future despite its numerous problems.
• Enslaved people continually resisted their enslavement by slowing work, breaking tools, stealing food, or attempting to run away.
• • Daily methods of resistance helped galvanize and sustain the larger movement toward abolition.
• • In 1526, Africans enslaved in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) were brought to aid Spanish exploration along the South Carolina–Georgia coastline. 
  • They led the earliest known slave revolt in what is now U.S. territory and escaped into nearby Indigenous communities.
• • Inspired by the Haitian Revolution, Charles Deslondes led up to 500 enslaved people in the largest slave revolt on U.S. soil, known as the German Coast Uprising, or the Louisiana Revolt of 1811. 
• • Deslondes organized support across local plantations and maroon communities (including self-emancipated people from Haiti) and led them on a march toward New Orleans. 
• • Wounded the owner and killed his son, adding to their numbers along the way and shouting “freedom or death” as they marched
• • The revolt was violently suppressed…Some were beheaded with their heads staked on poles along the river for 60 miles to intimidate other enslaved people
• • Throughout the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the free Black population grew in the U.S. 
  • By 1860, free people were 12% of the Black population. 

  Although there were more free Black people in the South than in the North, their numbers were small in proportion to the enslaved population.
• • The smaller number of free Black people in the North and South built community through institutions that thrived in cities like Philadelphia, New York, and New Orleans. 
  • They created mutual-aid societies that funded the growth of Black schools, businesses, and independent churches and supported the work of Black writers and speakers.
• • In the 19th century, Black women activists used speeches and publications to call attention to the need to consider gender and Black women’s experiences in antislavery discussions.
• • Maria Stewart was the first Black woman to publish a political manifesto, and one of the first American women to give a public address. 

  Her advocacy in the 1830s contributed to the first wave of the feminist movement.
• • Black women activists called attention to the ways that they experienced the combined effects of race and gender discrimination.
• • Black women activists fought for abolitionism and the rights of women, paving a path for the women’s suffrage movement.
• • By highlighting the connected nature of race, gender, and class in their experiences, Black women’s activism anticipated political debates that remain central to African American politics