Unit 6 Reading notes

.pdf

School

West Los Angeles College *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

004

Subject

History

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

pdf

Pages

Uploaded by DoctorTapirPerson195

Unit 6 Reading notes During the War for Independence, African Americans were loyal not to a place nor to a people but, to a principle 4.2 African Americans and the Rhetoric of Revolution - Thomas Je ff erson one of the many leader of the revolution - They studied f natural rights from European Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke. - They used the natural rights theory to incorporate into the declaration of independence. - Natural rights, such as the right to be free and pursue one’s own “happiness,” are rights all human beings possess that are not granted by government and cannot be revoked or repealed. - natural rights are “truths” that are “self-evident” and “unalienable” such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” - Colonists also resented that this tax was imposed on them without having a voice in Parliament, which led to cries of “No taxation without representation!” - 1773 a record number of antislavery pamphlets were published - Black Americans continued to petition for their freedom during the Revolutionary War, which broke out in 1775 in Massachusetts Thomas Je ff erson - Like George Washington, Je ff erson was part of Virginia’s slaveholding aristocracy. - When the Revolution broke out, Je ff erson owned just under 200 slaves on his central Virginia plantation, Monticello. - Je ff erson saw slavery as a regrettable institution and hoped a process of gradual emancipation would eventually lead to its permanent demise. - Je ff erson wrote the Declaration of Independence in the summer of 1776 - “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that there are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. (US, 1776)” - Natural rights include freedom happiness and property. - Despite Je ff erson’s recognition that slavery violated the natural rights of Africans and African Americans, he only freed a very small number of his slaves during his life and left hundreds still in bondage at his death in 1826.

- Je ff erson feared racial “mixture” and the corruption of white racial purity, despite maintaining a sexual relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, a woman who bore him five children and who herself was the product of a sexual encounter between Je ff erson’s father-in-law and Hemings’s mother, Betty. 4.3 Fighting Their Way to Freedom - In addition to filing freedom petitions and writing pamphlets advocating for the abolition of slavery, African Americans fought for their freedom during the colonial and revolutionary era by serving in the military. - Before the Revolution, between 1675 and 1739, the southern colonies were almost constantly involved in fighting Native Americans or the Spanish. - In 1703, the South Carolina assembly o ff ered to free any slave who captured or killed hostile Native Americans. Beginning as early as 1705, free blacks became eligible for enrollment in the militia. Unlike white persons, they were required to muster for service without bringing arms. - All enslaved people fought in order to gain freedom. Black Loyalists in the Revolutionary War - Black Loyalists in the Revolutionary War - The hope of freedom in return for service led many enslaved African Americans to leave the plantation to follow the British Army. No exact statistics are available on the number of enslaved people who reached British sanctuaries, but Thomas Je ff erson estimated the number at 30,000 in 1778 alone (Tate 1865:119). Black Patriots in the Revolutionary War - In the 1850s, the free black abolitionist, William C. Nell of Boston, published the nation’s first histories of African Americans – about military service on the Patriot side during the American Revolution - about 5,000 black soldiers ultimately fought on the patriot side. - The use of black men as soldiers, whether freemen or slaves, was avoided early in the war by Congress and George Washington, General of the Continental Army. - After the war, the black soldiers and seamen of Virginia were liberally rewarded in money, land bounties, and granted them pensions. 4.4 The Impact of the Revolution on Slavery

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version