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  • What was the difference between indentured servants and economic slaves?
    Indentured servants worked for the owner of their contract, which had a term limit. Once the term was up, the worker could continue with their life. An enslaved person was treated like property to be bought, sold, traded, or destroyed at the will of the owner.
  • What was the legal status of privateering as the Southern states began to secede one by one and form a government—all while seizing federal property, particularly armories?"
    The Treaty of Paris in 1815 declared the issuance of letters of marque and the practice of arming merchantmen to take commerce of belligerents at sea by force illegal. However, the devil is always in the details.
  • How many black mariners were employed on the East Coast of the US in 1860?
    Fully twenty-five percent of mariners and other members of seagoing trades were African Americans--some free, some enslaved. Their skill sets ranged from new hands taken on board for a voyage all the way to captain and owner of a seagoing vessel. There were many pilots—free and enslaved—working the sounds of the Carolinas, and the fluctuating local laws about where they could and could not sail, drove transiting captains to desparation.
  • Who were the husband-and-wife team who left Georgia and traveled by foot, carriage, and boat to escape bondage in the Deep Who were the husband-and-wife team who left Georgia and traveled by foot, carriage, and boat to escape bondage in the Deep South and make their way into the North and ultimately to Great Britain in 1846?
    Ellen and William Craft passed as the White “master” and the Black “slave,” respectively.
  • What was the largest attempted slave escape from Washington, DC?
    The Pearl Incident in 1848 was the most massive, attempted slave escape from Washington, DC, where slavery was still legal. The Pearl was a poorly maintained schooner from Philadelphia with two captains and one crewman on the manifest.
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