Student Resources:

• Background Essay
• Background Slides (PPTX download)
• Event Cards:
  • Full List (25 events)
    • 1776: Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Continental Congress
    • 1777: Prince Hall and African American Men Petition the Massachusetts Legislature
    • 1777: Vermont Constitution Bans Slavery
    • 1780: Constitution of Massachusetts claims all men are born free and equal
    • 1781: Elizabeth (Mumbet) Freeman successfully sues for her freedom 
    • 1782: Virginia allows manumission by law
    • 1783: Quock Walker successfully sues for his freedom
    • 1783: Belinda Sutton petitions Massachusetts for an income from her former slaveholder’s estate
    • 1783: Virginia passes law emancipating slaves who served as soldiers in Revolutionary War
    • 1784: Land Ordinance proposes to outlaw slavery
    • 1784: Rhode Island and Connecticut pass gradual emancipation plans  
    • 1787: US Constitution is signed by 38 of the 41 delegates attending the Constitutional Convention
    • 1787: The Northwest Ordinance is passed by the Confederation Congress banning slavery
    • 1789-1815: French Revolution grapples with slavery
    • 1790: The Southwest Ordinance is passed by the first Congress  
    • 1791-1804: Haitian Revolution begins as a slave revolt and creates republic that outlaws slavery
    • 1793: Invention of the cotton gin
    • 1793: The first Fugitive Slave Law is passed by Congress 
    • 1796: Tennessee enters the Union as a slave state 
    • 1799: New York passes gradual emancipation plan
    • 1800: Gabriel’s Rebellion
    • 1801: Georgia outlaws manumission
    • 1803: Louisiana Purchase
    • 1804: New Jersey passes graduation emancipation plan
    • 1808: The international slave trade is abolished by an act of Congress
  • Abbreviated List (10 events)
    • 1776: Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Continental Congress
    • 1777: Prince Hall and African American Men Petition the Massachusetts Legislature
    • 1780: Massachusetts Constitution is adopted
    • 1781: Elizabeth (Mumbet) Freeman successfully sues for her freedom
    • 1787: US Constitution is signed by 38 of the 41 delegates attending the Constitutional Convention
    • 1787: The Northwest Ordinance is passed by the Confederation Congress banning slavery
    • 1790: The Southwest Ordinance is passed by Congress
    • 1793: Invention of the cotton gin
    • 1793: The first Fugitive Slave Law is passed by Congress
    • 1803: Louisiana Purchase
• Student Organizer
• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) graphic organizer
• Glossary

Teacher Resources:

• Answer Key

• Manumitted
• Freedom suits
• Gradual emancipation law
• Petitioning
• Ordinance
• Indentured servant

Facilitation Notes:

• Glossary terms for this lesson are provided on a separate handout. The terms are also defined when they appear in the sources provided.
• Some components of this lesson contain terminology that is no longer used because the terms are recognized to be offensive or derogatory. These terms have been retained in their original usage in order to present them accurately in their historical context for student learning, including understanding why these are not acceptable today.

Anticipate

• Optional: Have students read the background essay and highlight the main ideas. Have students summarize or “shrink the text” of the essay in 1-2 sentences.
• Optional: Have students read through the background slide presentation (PPTX download). The background slides present the main ideas of the background essay in abbreviated form. Have students summarize or “shrink the text” of the slides in 1-2 sentences.
• Review the “Individual Event Cards” to select events you want to use in the timeline activity. There are 25 total events, and 10 events are suggested as an abbreviated version.

Engage

• Transition: Today, we will look at how the principles of the American Revolution motivated some individuals and groups to challenge slavery, yet slavery persisted in the new nation. Let’s start by looking at the preamble to the Declaration of Independence:
  

  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

• Scaffolding note: Post the Preamble so students can read along with you as you read aloud.
• Ask students to decide if these words promise liberty, equality, and justice to all people. Have students write 1-2 sentences that explain their decision. Option: create a class poll via Poll Everywhere, Kahoot, or a polling app approved by your school and allow students to see the class results in real time.
• Have students share their rationale for their decision with a shoulder partner. After sharing with a partner, ask for volunteers to share their responses and reasoning.
• Transition: In the following activity, we will look at events beginning with the 1776 Declaration of Independence to the early 1800s. This will help us think about the extent to which the national government and state governments faithfully applied the promise of Founding principles to all people? To what extent did individuals and groups act upon these principles for African Americans? How did they act upon these principles for African Americans?

Explore

• Transition: The events in this organizer will help understand how slavery co-existed with Founding principles. Let’s do the first event, the Declaration of Independence, together.
• Distribute the student organizer and review the instructions.
• The Declaration of Independence event has been completed as an example. You can distribute the Declaration card to each student or post, so that everyone can read along with you.
  • In the “What happened?” column, shrink the text by condensing the information into one sentence.
  • In the “So what?” column, write why this event is relevant to the guiding questions:
    • To what extent did events during and following the Revolutionary War confront the conflict between slavery and Founding principles of liberty, equality, and justice?
    • How did the actions of individuals and groups during this time period work in concert with or against Founding ideals?
• Assign each student an event from the student organizer and distribute the corresponding “Individual Event Card.” Each event includes additional information and resources such as videos, the full or partial primary sources, or an essay on the topic. Students may use these supplemental resources to explore their event in further detail if there is time.
• Have students give each event a ranking of how much each event supports Founding Principles on the following scale: 10 = Fully supports Founding principles, 5 = Neutral, 1 = Contradicts Founding principles.
• Have students present their event to the class. Students should fill in their organizer as their peers present.
• Scaffolding notes:
  • Pair students or create small groups to create opportunities for collaboration.
  • An abbreviated list of events can be used for smaller classes or classes with limited time.
• Optional extension: Invite students to create a human timeline by lining up in the order of their events across the classroom. They will need to talk to each other and work out the sequence for themselves. You may add complexity by saying that they must organize their timeline to scale. For example, if there is a gap of 10 years between two events, there should be 10 times the space between these events. You can decide to make these spaces a step for each year or another measurement.
• Using their analysis from Part I, have students graph each event’s connection to Founding principles using the rankings they assigned in the final column on their organizer. Two events have been completed as an example in the organizer in Part II.
• Have students sort the timeline events into categories of actions pertaining to the national government, state governments, and individuals and/or groups. Note: The abbreviated list of events only deals with actions of the national government, individuals, and groups.
• Once students have completed their graphs, ask them to reflect on the pattern(s) they created.
• Transition: Now that you have plotted out the extent to which these events worked in harmony with or against Founding principles, what patterns do you see? What does this reveal about the United States’ commitment to Founding principles in the early days of the republic at the national level? At the state level? By the actions of individuals or groups?
• Encourage students to see that a conflict between slave and free states was intensifying by the way in which the lines on the graph spike up and down.

Assess and Reflect

• Transition: Now that you have learned about important events and considered how they connect to Founding principles, go back to our guiding questions and create your response:
  • To what extent did events during and following the Revolutionary War confront the conflict between slavery and the Founding principles of liberty, equality, and justice?
  • How did the actions of individuals and groups during this time period work in concert with or against Founding ideals?
  • Reference specific evidence from your organizer as well as your own analysis.
• The guiding questions are listed under Part III of the student handout.
• Scaffolding note: Have students respond in the manner of your choosing. Some suggestions include:
  • Thesis statement
  • Paragraph
  • Thesis and outline
  • Essay
  • Annotated image or artistic response
  • Claim, Evidence, Reasoning graphic organizer

Extend

• Ask students to create or find an image corresponding to their event. 
• Have students look at the original constitution of their state. How clearly does it relate to Founding principles? Students can also look at latter constitutions (if applicable) to consider continuities and change over time in the governance of their home states.