Slavery in all the places that are now the United States began with the enslavement of Indigenous people. 

What Else Should My Students Know?

12.A Before the European invasion, many Native nations practiced slavery, mostly as captivity after warfare.

12.B Europeans dramatically increased the scope and nature of Indigenous slavery.

12.C Europeans enslaved between 2.5 million and 5 million Indigenous people throughout the Americas. Many were sold globally for enslavement elsewhere. Most enslaved Indigenous people were women and children.

12.D White people’s enslavement of Indigenous people—part of the exploitation of Indigenous labor and the theft of Indigenous land—adversely affected every community that it touched. 

How Can I Teach This?

• Compare historical and contemporary maps of Native nations. Students should identify different communities and map the ways that their boundaries and locations have changed.
• Many students may be surprised to learn about the extent of Indigenous slavery. Encourage students to critically examine textbook representations and popular stories about enslavers such as Columbus and Ponce de León.
• Students should know that people in all American colonies practiced slavery. By mapping the geography and economies of different parts of the colonies, students can learn that enslaved people performed different kinds of labor depending on their location—although most enslaved people in what is now the United States lived in and worked for households. 
• Use learning about the enslavement of Indigenous peoples to go beyond the common “North-South” divide. For example, students can learn about enslavement in western territories such as California, New Mexico and Utah. Here, most enslaved people were Indigenous people forced to labor in a variety of places, including mines, farms, ranches, households and small businesses.
• Students should learn that colonial enslavement of Indigenous people was integral to colonization, settlement and western expansion into the modern era. There are many examples that will engage students for illustration, such as the California Gold Rush, the Plains Wars of the 1870s, the Southwestern wars against the Utes and Navajo, and the Mormon settlement of Utah.

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Students will know that the main purpose of American slavery was to make money for enslavers.

What Else Should My Students Know?

11.A Labor produces goods and services that can be exchanged for money or other goods and services.

11.B Because enslavers were trying to make money, regardless of their impact on other people, they did not pay the people they enslaved and provided them with only the minimum food, housing and clothing needed to keep them working. 

11.C Even free people who did not enslave others benefited from slavery because it kept the prices of goods and services low while building infrastructure and industries.

11.D People were enslaved in different ways depending on place and time. Most enslaved people were in bondage for their entire lives, and many, including all enslaved Africans‚ inherited the condition from their parents. 

11.E Enslaved people performed many different kinds of work, depending on age, gender and location‚ and many were highly skilled. Most did not work on plantations. About half of all enslaved people in what is now the United States lived under the same roof as their enslavers and performed hard household work.

How Can I Teach This?

• In capitalist economic systems, all people are producers and consumers. To start, encourage students to identify the ways they consume goods and services, identifying who provides them and where they come from. Who makes the things that they use and wear? Where do those people live? What are their lives like? Who makes money by producing and selling those things? Students can examine the labels on clothing to learn where these goods are produced. Exploring the persistence of contemporary labor exploitation and activism to end conditions such as sweatshop labor will help students to understand the continuing relevance of these discussions. 
• Students need to know that slavery was first and primarily an economic institution (or a way to produce goods and services). Enslavers and traders were motivated by prioritizing their own economic gain over the humanity of other people. Historians now understand that while racism was a major rationalization for enslavement, it was not the primary cause. 
• As students understand how the work of enslaved people generated profit, they should examine how non-enslaving white people also benefited from slavery. Beginning with the differences between upstanders and bystanders can lead into a discussion about people who don’t say anything when they see injustices taking place and people who do not see injustices in the first place.
• Exploring the economics of the slaving industry will also help students to understand that many jobs were dependent on the slave trade, including work in mills, banking, food production, textiles and the shipping industry. Students should also consider the difficulty of household labor (cooking, cleaning, sewing, raising children, etc.) to understand the economic value that enslaved people added to households in, for example, colonial New England. Field trips to historic sites— even if not directly related to slavery—offer an opportunity to explore the labor needed to maintain households, farms and factories.
• “Runaway slave” ads also show that enslaved people worked different types of jobs and had different skills. Many advertisements are collected online in the Freedom on the Move database.
• By reading the narratives of formerly enslaved people and trade books such as Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams, students should learn that being assigned a monetary value was a dehumanizing action that did not diminish the actual humanity of the enslaved person.
• Reading excerpts from the accounts collected in the book Growing Up in Slavery will help students to understand the difficult lives of enslaved children. 

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Students will know slavery was the cause of the Civil War.

What Else Should My Students Know?

10.A People in the United States didn’t agree about slavery. Some believed it was wrong and should be ended; some didn’t mind it, but didn’t want more people to be enslaved in new places; and others wanted to spread slavery to new states. People in the last group decided to secede from‚ or leave‚ the United States so that they could continue enslaving people.

10.B The United States, or the Union, went to war to stop some states from leaving. This is called the Civil War.

10.C As the Union Army won victories, many enslaved people freed themselves by escaping to the free side; many also helped the Union Army, including by fighting.

10.D Indigenous people fought on both sides of the war. For many Native nations, the Civil War was a war fought in a country not their own about issues that had little to do with them.

10.E When the Union finally won the war, its leaders decided to end slavery.

How Can I Teach This?

• To lay the groundwork for the conflicts that resulted in the Civil War, students should also learn about peace and how it manifests in the classroom. They can discuss questions such as: “What is peace?” “Why do we want peace?” “What makes peace helpful in our classroom?” “If things are peaceful, who benefits?” Teachers can help students to consider the possible courses of action when people disagree, including conflict resolution.
• Using trade books such as Under the Freedom Tree and Pink and Say, students can learn about the clash between the Union and Confederate armies.
• Discussing the many enslaved people who escaped when the Union armies were nearby and assisted the Union will help students to understand that people did not want to be enslaved and greatly helped to end slavery.
• Teachers should lay the groundwork for understanding how subjugation of African Americans and Indigenous peoples continued after the Civil War. 
• Not everyone was satisfied with the terms of surrender that ended the war. Beginning with examples of conflicts that are resolved even though both sides do not agree and drawing on earlier discussions of peace will help students to think about the idea of compromise. Students can discuss what happens when resolutions are met that don’t please both sides, or if there is not a solution that makes everyone happy.
• The many names for the Civil War create an opportunity to engage students in a discussion of the importance of language. Encourage students to consider the ways that what you call something reflects what you think it means. Students can examine the differences between calling the Civil War the “War Between the States,” “Freedom War,” “War for Southern Independence” or “War of the Rebellion.”

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Students will know that many people worked individually and in groups to end slavery.

What Else Should My Students Know?

9.A Once they escaped, many people who had been enslaved worked to change the laws that allowed slavery.

9.B Not every white person agreed with slavery. Some joined groups that tried to convince people in power to end slavery.

9.C Although it was difficult, slavery eventually became illegal. However, even though slavery became illegal, labor exploitation and the oppression of black and Indigenous people have never gone away.

How Can I Teach This?

• Some of the leading voices for the abolition of slavery were the formerly enslaved. Students should learn about people like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to appreciate their heroism and activism. The story of Mum Bett and the end of slavery in Massachusetts, told through the book Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence, can give students a case study. 
• Students should begin to understand the layers of government (local, state, tribal and national) and the idea that rules can change from place to place and gradually over time. To approach the idea that there are different rules in different places, start by encouraging students to discuss the different rules they follow in different contexts‚ for example, the difference between what is acceptable in inside play and outside play.
• Learning about the abolition movement gives students a chance to consider what it means to recognize and stand up against injustice. Drawing from Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards, teachers can create some compelling questions to push this conversation forward, encouraging discussion of circumstances that students and their families face. Students should study examples and role models from the past and present, and ask themselves: “How can I make a difference?” Connecting to initial discussions about the nature of freedom, they should also discuss what it means for some people to have the choice to act while others do not.

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Students should understand that slavery and race are intimately connected, that slavery came to be associated with blackness, and that white people developed racist ideas to justify enslaving people of color. 

What Else Should My Students Know?

8.A Differences, whether real or perceived, can make some people feel that it is OK to treat others badly, to exploit other people and to believe that some people are better than others.

8.B The power of ownership and enslavement made people feel that their perceived superiority was real. 

8.C Enslavers punished and tortured people because they felt superior and wanted to make money.

8.D Perceptions of racial differences remain in the United States today. These perceptions continue to impact whether all people are truly free.

How Can I Teach This?

• Students should consider how people perceive differences and the ways that these perceptions can become prejudices. Activities including examining portraits and creating paper plate portraits will help to make these conversations concrete.
• Books such as The Skin You Live In, The Colors of Us, Let’s Talk About Race and Red: A Crayon’s Story provide accessible entry points to engage students in conversations about the social perceptions of and construction of race. 
• A series of lessons about the “Different Colors of Beauty” offers concrete and age appropriate activities to support examination of skin color and diversity.
• Students should learn that slavery was not always a function of race. Students should also learn that many Indigenous people and Africans were enslavers before (and, in some cases, after) European invasions and that older practices of slavery were not racialized.

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Students should know that enslavers exploited the many types of highly skilled labor of enslaved people for their own profit.

What Else Should My Students Know?

7.A Enslaved people did many different kinds of work depending on place, time and gender. 

7.B Although most enslaved people could not make money from their work, their enslavers did.

7.C The forced labor of enslaved people built many important buildings and institutions. European colonization itself depended on the work of Indigenous people and, later, Africans.

How Can I Teach This?

• Ask students to examine the wide variety of work that enslaved people did by examining lists of the occupations of enslaved people, such as those published in the colonial-era Virginia Gazette. Which of these occupations are familiar? Which are not? 
• Students should learn about the idea of profit and how it is generated. To begin this conversation, have students examine a business like a farm, explaining how it works and makes money by producing resources for sale. Then make connections to the role of laborers in a business and the importance of their pay. Ask students to think about why enslaved people were not paid and what impact that had.
• Make sure to include the many kinds of work that enslaved women did, including fieldwork and work that many upper- and middle-class European women would not do. Students may not think about household labor as “work,” so it is important to encourage them to think about the labor involved in cooking, cleaning, making clothes and other household maintenance during these centuries.
• Read trade books about the skilled labor of enslaved people such as Dave the Potter and Brick by Brick, encouraging students to discuss the ways that those workers created valuable commodities. 
• Show students images of some of the important structures that were built by enslaved people, including the White House, the Capitol Building, major American railroads and Thomas Jefferson’s estate at Monticello.
• When students study colonial times, make sure to include the experiences of enslaved people and Indigenous people living in and nearby the colonies students are discussing.

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Students should know that enslaved people tried to maintain their cultures while building new traditions that continue to be important.

What Else Should My Students Know?

6.A Music was very important in the lives of enslaved people, and the music they created shapes popular music today.

6.B Enslaved people drew from oral traditions in Indigenous and African cultures to pass on stories, history, culture and teachings.

6.C Cultural practices, including crafts and food, that developed in Indigenous and African cultures continue to this day. 

How Can I Teach This?

• The Library of Congress has multiple online collections that include the music of enslaved people, including recordings of freed people singing and playing music they learned while enslaved.
• Introduce students to blues music by listening to Vera Hall sing “Trouble So Hard” and discussing the song’s roots in the experience of enslaved people. 
• Teachers can similarly introduce spirituals using online collections. Some of the most famous spirituals, including “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Roll, Jordan, Roll” were composed by Wallace and Minerva Willis, enslaved African Americans who lived in the Choctaw Nation.
• Learn about the lasting influence of Indigenous storytelling with students using books like Chukfi Rabbit’s Big, Bad Bellyache or The Origin of the Milky Way and Other Living Stories of the Cherokee.
• The “Br’er Rabbit” folktales provide examples of stories that originated among the enslaved African population as a way to teach survival skills to enslaved children. When exploring these stories, be careful to use collections such as Jump! The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, which avoid the racism of earlier compilations by white folklorists.
• The Minnesota Department of Education’s Department of Indian Education offers excellent resources for teaching about Indigenous oral traditions and practices.

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Students should know that enslaved people hated being enslaved, and resisted bondage in many ways.

What Else Should My Students Know?

5.A Enslaved people wanted to escape to freedom. Although it was very difficult and largely impossible, some did manage to escape.

5.B Laws, including the U.S. Constitution, made slavery legal and escaping illegal. Enslaved people were often hunted and returned to slavery.

5.C Many people who escaped slavery went on to fight for freedom for all enslaved people.

5.D Enslaved people resisted slavery to try and obtain some freedom in the midst of their enslavement. Resistance took many forms, ranging from everyday actions like slowing down work to armed rebellion.

How Can I Teach This?

• Students may not think about how learning to read and write European languages could be forms of resistance. Trade books such as Midnight Teacher and Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton show students how difficult and important it was for enslaved people to learn European languages. 
• Cultural practices among enslaved people were often forms of resistance. Students can learn about ceremonies like “jumping the broom,” developed when marriage was forbidden, using a text like Ellen’s Broom. Age-appropriate books such as The Patchwork Path, The Secret to Freedom and Follow the Drinking Gourd show how art forms like quilting and song served a dual purpose, offering directions for escape.
• To show how difficult it was to escape slavery, students can read Henry’s Freedom Box or Seven Miles to Freedom, identifying the distances covered in those books on a map and comparing them to the distances that they cover every day.
• The Underground Railroad can captivate students at this age, and when mixed with books like Crossing Bok Chitto, teachers can use escape stories to show that not every person supported slavery. By identifying the ways that some free people helped enslaved people find freedom, teachers can encourage students to think about how they can take part in helping others obtain liberation from oppression. 
• It is important to show students that many formerly enslaved people became fierce and influential advocates for abolishing slavery, including Frederick Douglass.

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Students should know that enslaved people had families that could be split up at any time.

What Else Should My Students Know?

4.A Enslaved people loved their families, just like other people. 

4.B Enslavers often separated families to make more money or as punishment. Once separated, families were rarely able to communicate or reunite. After the end of slavery, many formerly enslaved people searched long and hard, often in vain, to find their missing family members. 

4.C When children were not allowed to live with their families, other enslaved people took care of them. 

4.D About half of all enslaved people lived under the same roof as the families they worked for. Sometimes they ate the same food and wore the same clothes. 

How Can I Teach This?

• At first, teachers should discuss the very nature of family. They should begin by asking questions such as: “Who makes a family?” “What do families do for each other?” “How does it feel to be part of a family?” The answers to these questions will provide fertile material for considering how enslaved people experienced family, while helping students to understand the ways that family members risked their lives for each other.
• Beginning to talk about the importance of families and their shared history can prepare students to understand the trauma of the separation of enslaved families. Books like Saltypie show students examples of family resilience in the face of adversity.
• Use trade books that show the close relationships and shared traditions among some enslaved families, such as Sky Sash So Blue, Circle Unbroken and Tea Cakes for Tosh. Encourage students to identify the ways that their family relationships are similar to those of these enslaved people.

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Students should know that enslaved Indigenous people and Africans came from nations with diverse cultures and traditions and that they continued many of these traditions while enslaved.

What Else Should My Students Know?

3.A Indigenous peoples have always governed their own nations in the lands that are now the United States.

3.B Europeans enslaved millions of Indigenous people when they invaded the Americas. Other Indigenous communities were attacked through warfare, diseases, land dispossession and forced assimilation. 

3.C The rich cultures of Indigenous people persisted despite the colonial invasion. Many people are working to support the resurgence of Indigenous languages and ways of seeing the world.

3.D Africa is a continent that has always been home to many people, nations and cultures.

3.E Millions of people were brought against their will from Africa and enslaved in the Americas.

3.F Enslaved Africans brought skills, food, music, clothing, language and religious practices with them to the Americas‚ a cultural heritage that is still with us in our daily lives.

How Can I Teach This?

• Learning about culture should begin with students exploring their own identities and identifying parts of their lives that constitute their home culture. Comparing similarities and differences between cultures in the classroom community will prepare students to consider more unfamiliar cultures.
• When teaching about other eras, nations and cultures, focus on similarities with students’ lives first before moving to discuss differences. Learning about “cultural universals” such as art forms, group rules, social organization, family structures, basic needs, language and celebrations helps students to recognize that people are bound together by similarities, regardless of group membership. 
• Students should learn about music, arts, religion and food from a selection of nations. They should compare and contrast those experiences, asking: “What is the same about these traditions?” “What is different?” “How are these the same as and different from your culture?” Exploring the commonalities between students’ home cultures and the diverse cultures of Indigenous and African peoples will help students to have empathy for those who were enslaved. 
• Use trade books that establish the humanity of Indigenous and African people before introducing the idea of enslavement. Choose books such as Bowwow Powwow and The People Shall Continue.
• As you introduce the idea of slavery, use books that show the roots of enslaved people in their home cultures, such as Now Let Me Fly: The Story of a Slave Family, In the Time of Drums and Never Forgotten.

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