Slavery 5Ws
You can find this storyboard in the following articles and resources:
Slavery in America
By Liane Hicks
Beginning in 1619, African men, women, and children were kidnapped from their homeland and shipped in brutal conditions to the American colonies to endure a life of hardship in bondage as slaves. While the international slave trade was outlawed in 1808, slavery continued in America, particularly in the southern states, throughout the 1800s. Slavery is an inextricable part of the story of America and it was rooted in racism that still impacts our society today.
5 Ws of Social Studies and History
By Lauren Ayube
The 5 Ws are questions that, when answered, give all of the information needed on a particular topic, and are often used in research, writing, and investigations. The 5 Ws are: who, what, where, when, and why. Often “how” is included as well, but isn’t necessarily needed.
Storyboard Description
This storyboard explains the institution of Slavery in America using the 5Ws and H: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How: When did slavery occur? Who did slavery affect? Where did slavery occur? Why did slavery continue for so long? How did people resist slaver? What happened to end or abolish slavery?
Storyboard Text
- WHEN DID IT OCCUR?
- WHO WAS AFFECTED BY IT?
- WHERE DID IT OCCUR?
- Every European colonizer engaged in the enslavement of the Indigenous peoples of North America. In 1619, the first enslaved Africans were brought to Jamestown, Virginia marking the beginning of 246 years of the institution of slavery in America.
- WHY DID IT CONTINUE FOR SO LONG?
- Millions of African men, women, and children were kidnapped, sent on slave ships with inhumane conditions, and enslaved in American colonies/states from 1619-1865. Enslavers became wealthy from their labor and the buying and selling of enslaved people. Merchants, traders, and bankers also profited.
- HOW DID PEOPLE RESIST?
- “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” - Frederick Douglass
- Every one of the 13 colonies in America engaged in slavery, although it became particularly entrenched in the Southern colonies. As Northern states began to outlaw slavery after independence, the Southern states held on. This lead to the Civil War in 1861.
- WHAT HAPPENED TO ABOLISH IT?
- “All persons held as slaves within any States . . . shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." - Abraham Lincoln in his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
- The U.S. created laws that protected, institutionalized, and continued the practice of slavery for almost 250 years. It is rooted in the false and racist idea of white supremacy. It was a method of denying rights to people based on race and ensured that white Christian men remained in positions of power.
- VIRGINIA SLAVE CODES
- Enslaved people fought for their freedom and resisted their enslavers by way of armed rebellions, organizing and writing, and running away on the Underground Railroad. Quakers and other white abolitionists also organized and called for an end to or abolition of slavery.
- 11 states seceded from the United States to create the Confederacy, which would continue the practice of slavery. The Northern army fought to maintain the union. The South was defeated in 1865. The 13th amendment was passed, formally outlawing slavery.