About African American - Slavery

choose any 1 of the following two questions (answers to a minimum of three-quarters of a page and 1.5 pages) :

1.  Discuss the link between the slave trade and racism. In your discussion include the factors of the profit-motive, methods of controlling slaves during the middle passage, slave plantations, and other aspects of  the system of slavery, such as slave auctions, which dehumanized Africans who had been enslaved. Include details from the autobiography of Frederick Douglass as to the treatment of slaves.

2.  Discuss the economics of slavery beginning with the crops grown in the earliest settlements through the invention of the cotton gin. Link the growth and spread of slavery during the first 60 years of the 19thcentury to the growth of populations, wealth in the north and south, industry and the growth of resistance. Be specific in identifying the causes and types of resistance that were engaged in by enslaved African Americans during this period.