Resistance and Revolt | APAAS

Resistance and Revolt

This section covers the cultural, political, and militant avenues for resistance to the system of slavery across the Americas. Topics may include:
 


Image: [Eugène Marie François Villain], engraver. Le 1er. Juillet 1801, Toussaint-L’Ouverture, chargés des pouvoirs du peuple d’Haïty et auspices du Tout-puissante, proclame la Gouverneur général, assisté des mandataires légalement convoqués, en présence et sous les Constitution de la république d’Haïty. s.l., 1801. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

A Black Haitian general (wearing a pointed and feathered hat, dark coat with tails and epaulets, white pants, and dark boots) holding a book next to other troops, as a priest in formal robes and holding a staff looks above toward an image of God.

  • Topics 2.9–2.15

AP African American Studies Guide

Toggle menu

Topic 2.9

Creating African American Culture

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 2.9.A 

Describe African American forms of self-expression in art, music, and language that combine influences from diverse African cultures with local sources.

LO 2.9.B

Describe ways enslaved African Americans adapted African musical elements from their ancestors and influenced the development of American musical genres.

LO 2.9.C

Explain the multiple functions and significance of spirituals

Essentials

Terms

  • Gullah
  • Gospel
  • Blues
  • Fodet
  • Sorrow songs
  • Jubilee songs
  • Underground Railroad

Places/Geography

  • Senegambia
  • West Central Africa
  • Louisiana
  • West Africa

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

A wide-mouthed brown earthenware jar with two handles and writing inscribed on the surface.

Storage Jar

1858

View this example of David Drake’s masterful pottery.

  • Work of Art
Expand

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

A man with a beard, blue and white checkered shirt, and dark blue suit jacket smiles at the camera.

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley

with David Waldstreicher

Explore the life of this Black, female poet who published a book of poems while enslaved, and learn about the reactions to her work at the time.

  • Video
Expand

Topic 2.10

Black Pride, Identity, and the Question of Naming

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 2.10.A 

Explain how changing demographics and popular debates about African Americans’ identity influenced the terms they used to identify themselves in the nineteenth century and beyond.

Essentials

Terms

  • American Colonization Society
  • Ethnonyms

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

A stipple portrait of William Whipper, a Black man, wearing a dark bowtie, vest, and jacket, and a white shirt

A Resolution on Naming

1835

Read William Whipper’s proposal on Black nomenclature at a convention in 1835.

  • Primary Source
Expand

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

Resources from Our Partners

We have teamed up with New American History on interactive resources exploring America’s past and harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity, and inquiry.

New American History Logo

American Visions, Black Voting Rights

View this video interpretation of the Colored Convention in New York in 1840 where Black delegates delivered spirited speeches about seizing the franchise (i.e., the right to vote). 

Explore Activity

Topic 2.11

The Stono Rebellion and Fort Mose

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 2.11.A 

Explain key effects of the asylum offered by Spanish Florida in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Essentials

Terms

  • Yamasee War
  • Stono Rebellion

Places/Geography

  • St. Augustine
  • Fort Mose
  • Spanish Florida
  • Kingdom of Kongo

People

  • Francisco Menéndez
  • Jemmy

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

A handwritten transcript of a letter

Letter from the Governor of East Florida

1739

Read a letter that points to the conflicts and alliances between the Spanish, English, Africans, and Native Americans in border regions of the Southeast.

  • Primary Source

Featured Videos

These videos from Black History in Two Minutes (or So) feature condensed, engaging, and fact-packed stories.


Take a deeper dive into Fort Mose and the Stono Rebellion in this video.

Topic 2.12

Legacies of the Haitian Revolution

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 2.12.A 

Explain the global impacts of the Haitian Revolution.

LO 2.12.B

Describe the role of maroons in the Haitian Revolution.

LO 2.12.C

Explain the impacts of the Haitian Revolution on African diasporic communities and Black political thought.

Essentials

Terms

  • Haitian Revolution
  • Alien and Sedition Acts
  • Maroons
  • Louisiana Slave Revolt
  • Malê Uprising

Places/Geography

  • Haiti
  • Guadeloupe
  • Martinique
  • Haiti

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

An engraving of a stately building with a rotunda topped with a Haitian flag

“Lecture on Haiti”

1893

Read an excerpt from Frederick Douglass’s lecture on the importance of Haiti in the abolition of slavery.

  • Primary Source

Image Gallery: Jacob Lawrence, The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture Series (paintings, 1938; prints 1986–1997)

These three works by Jacob Lawrence are part of a series of fifteen silkscreen prints completed from 1986 to 1997 depicting the life of Toussaint L’Ouverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution. The original paintings in the series were completed in 1938. View all fifteen silkscreen prints on the Colby Museum of Art website.

Toussaint L'Ouverture, a Black Haitian military officer, in profile wearing a red military uniform (red hat with white trim and feathers, red coat with gold epaulets) and a white ruffled shirt.
Black men and women holding rifles marching through tall grass.
Three Black men look down on one side of a table, while on the other side another Black man points toward a map on the table.

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

Expand

Topic 2.13

Resistance and Revolts in the United States

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 2.13.A 

Describe the daily forms of resistance demonstrated by enslaved and free African Americans.

LO 2.13.B

Describe the inspirations, goals, and struggles of different revolts and abolitionist organizing led by enslaved and free Afrodescendants throughout the Americas.

Essentials

Terms

  • Daily methods of resistance
  • German Coast Uprising (aka Louisiana Revolt of 1811)

Places/Geography

  • Santo Domingo

People

  • Charles Deslondes
  • Madison Washington
  • Nat Turner
  • Denmark Vesey
  • Maria W. Stewart
  • Henry Highland Garnet

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

Scan of a letter from Nelson Allyn to his brother Joseph in Connecticut, dated September 25, 1831.

Nelson Allyn to Joseph Allyn

1831

Read a firsthand account of the retaliation against African Americans in North Carolina after Nat Turner’s Rebellion.

  • Primary Source
Expand

Featured Videos

These videos from Black History in Two Minutes (or So) feature condensed, engaging, and fact-packed stories.


Explore the history and importance of Black churches in this video.

Topic 2.14

Black Organizing in the North: Freedom, Women’s Rights, and Education

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 2.14.A 

Explain how free Black people in the North and South organized to support their communities.

LO 2.14.B

Describe the techniques used by Black women activists to advocate for social justice and reform.

LO 2.14.C

Explain why Black women’s activism is historically and culturally significant.

Essentials

Terms

  • Free Black people
  • Mutual-aid societies
  • First-wave feminism

People

  • Maria W. Stewart

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

Portrait of a Black man with sideburns wearing a black suit with a white shirt, pictured in profile.

James Forten, Sailmaker

by Julie Winch

Read about James Forten, an African American craftsman and businessman in nineteenth-century Philadelphia who employed an integrated workforce.

  • Essay
Expand

Featured Videos

These videos from Black History in Two Minutes (or So) feature condensed, engaging, and fact-packed stories.


Take a closer look at the larger abolitionist movement in the North.


Learn about Free Black communities in the North.


Discover the origins of Black service organizations in the North.

Resources from Our Partners

We have teamed up with New American History on interactive resources exploring America’s past and harnessing the power of digital media, curiosity, and inquiry.

New American History Logo

American Visions: Black poet and orator Frances Ellen Watkins

View this video interpretation of Watkins’ poem, “Bury Me in a Free Land,” written for The Anti-Slavery Bugle newspaper in 1858.

Explore Activity

Topic 2.15

Maroon Societies and Autonomous Black Communities

Learning Objectives

Essentials

Learning Objectives

LO 2.15.A 

Describe the characteristics of maroon communities and the areas where they emerged across the African diaspora.

LO 2.15.B

Describe the purposes of maroon wars throughout the African diaspora.

Essentials

Terms

  • Maroon communities
  • Great Dismal Swamp
  • Palenques
  • Quilombos

Places/Geography

  • Quilombo dos Palmares

Required Sources

You will need to understand and be able to use these materials for the AP exam.

This oil painting depicts a fugitive enslaved man and woman beset by three mastiff dogs in a marshy landscape. The man crouches between the dogs and the woman, wielding a hatchet in his upraised right hand. Dangling from his clenched left wrist is a pair of manacles, with one cuff broken open. His body has numerous scars and a round brand or tattoo on his left shoulder. The woman is crouched behind him, both arms raised to shoulder height, palms faced outward as she peers over the man's shoulder. The dogs a

The Hunted Slaves

1862

View a depiction of self-emancipated people in the maroon communities of the Great Dismal Swamp.

  • Work of Art

Additional Resources

You can further develop your knowledge of this topic with primary and secondary sources.

Map of Pernambuco, Brazil, with ships off the coast and an inset depiction of Black men wearing white pants in a field.

The Palmares Quilombo

with Ana Lucia Araujo

Learn more about one of the most significant maroon communities in the Americas.

  • Video
A metal bust of a man on a marble base, topped with two Black-eyed Susan flowers. The bust reads "Zumbi dos Palmares: O Líder Negro De Todas As Raças."

The Palmares Quilombo

by Ana Lucia Araujo

Learn more about the development and defense of this maroon community.

  • Essay
Marcus Nevius wearing a checked-stripe sport coat with a lapel pin over a gray turtleneck.

City of Refuge

with Marcus P. Nevius

Explore the history of freed peoples in the Great Dismal Swamp and their relationship to maroon communities.

  • Video
Expand