US History › Section F · Westward expansion and the cotton South › Topic F.7
African Americans in the antebellum era
By 1860 almost four and a half million African Americans lived in the United States, nearly nine in ten of them enslaved. Their lives were shaped by violence and the constant threat of sale, but also by the families, faith and culture they built and by countless acts of resistance.
In this topic
- Slavery and the myth of paternalism
- Families under threat
- Women and the law: the case of Celia
- Everyday resistance
- Faith and culture
- Revolts and white fear
- Worked example: the effects of Nat Turner's revolt
- Free Black Americans
- Worked example: reading Twelve Years a Slave
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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