4-3.7

It Is Essential For Students To Know:

• The American Revolution had an effect on the lives of African Americans. African Americans, including slaves and free men, fought on both sides of the war.
• Some slaves were promised freedom after the war, but most times the promise was not fulfilled. [Peter Salem is an exception (4-3.6)].
• As a result of the sentiments of the Revolution contained in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” states in the North passed laws to emancipate their slaves. Most of these laws provided for gradual emancipation.
• emancipation means the act of being given your total freedom after someone else had controled everything you do. Slaves on a plantation worked from sun up to sun down for the person who owned them. They had no money and very little time to do things for themselves.
• Northerners were not as dependent economically on slave labor as landowners were in the South.
• In the South, some slave owners struggled with the conflict between their practice of slavery and the ideals of the revolution. A few set their slaves free as a result and a few states made manumission (freeing the slaves) easier.
• However, the southern landowners’ dependence on slave labor to work their plantation and their fear of liberating large numbers of African Americans led most states to enact more and more stringent controls on their slaves.
• The invention of the cotton gin [1793] made southerners more dependent on slave labor for their wealth and confirmed their commitment to slavery.
• a cotton gin short for cotton engine is a machine that quickly and easily separates the cotton fibers from the cotton seeds. This job had previously been done by slaves. After the invention of the cotton gin, more land was cleared in the south to plant cotton and the price of cloth became cheaper.
• Native Americans were influenced by the outcome of the American Revolution. As a result of the French and Indian War, the Native Americans had lost the support of their French ally when France lost the war and its North American territories.
• When the British made peace with the Americans and ended the Revolution, the Native Americans also lost their British ally in the thirteen new states.
• Pushed west, the Native Americans tried to resist the encroachment of American settlers on territories west of the Appalachian Mountains.
• However, the federal government sent troops to force the Native Americans to make treaties that allowed white settlement and protected the white settlers.
• The Land Ordinance of 1785 was passed by the Articles of Confederation Congress and provided for the dividing and selling of land in the Northwest Territory, thus attracting more settlers.
• The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 allowed new territories to organize and later become states when their population of white settlers reached a certain number. The ordinance also provided for public schools and outlawed slavery in the region.
• The new American government under the Constitution continued these ordinances.
• This region later became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.
• Although the Northwest Ordinance promised that “the utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians, their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent,” because the Land Ordinance and the Northwest Ordinance encouraged westward expansion, Native Americans were forced to give up their lands and move farther west. .

It Is Not Essential For Students To Know:

• Students do not need to know how each northern state liberated its slaves.
• Students do not have to know that both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson struggled with the conflict between the ideals of liberty and the reality of slavery.
• However, economic needs outweighed concerns about the personal liberty of African Americans and they both kept their slaves.
• Students do not need to focus on specific Native American tribes and cultures during this time period.
• Students do not need to know about the different actions in the territories that caused clashes between settlers and Native Americans.
• Students do not need to know that the British continued to offer support to the Native Americans from their forts within the northwestern boundaries of the new United States.
• Students do not need to understand that although the British gave up these forts in Jay’s Treaty, that concerns about British support of the Natives of the Northwest Territories contributed to the War of 1812.
• Students do not need to know about specific Indian fighters such as “Mad” Anthony Wayne, “Old Tippecanoe” William Henry Harrison or Andrew Jackson or about Native American leaders such as Tecumseh and “the Prophet”.
• Students do not need to know how or when specific states entered into the Union.