John Brown first made a name for himself as a militant abolitionist in 1854, when Brown traveled to Kansas following the Kansas-Nebraska Act, intent on defending the territory from the scourge of slavery. It was in “Bleeding Kansas,” named for violent conflicts between proslavery and antislavery settlers there, that John Brown led a guerilla warfare campaign against the territory’s proslavery settlers, including a deadly attack against residents of Pottawatomie Creek. By 1859, fueled by donations from wealthy abolitionists, Brown was again ready to strike a blow against slavery and slaveholders—this time in the South.

Americans affirmed their independence with the ringing declaration that "all men are created equal." Some of them owned slaves, however,and were unwilling to give them up as they gave speeches and wrote pamphlets championing freedom, liberty, and equality. So "to form a more perfect union" in 1787, certain compromises were made in the Constitution regarding slavery. This settled the slavery controversy for the first few decades of the American republic, but this situation changed with the application of Missouri for statehood in 1819.

This lesson focuses on the shift toward mass production in northern factories and on southern plantations that occurred during the first half of the 19th century. Using an economics-focused approach to examining U.S. history prior to the civil war, students examine the role of slavery, industrialization, regionalism, and political responses that ultimately led to the start of a war.

Students examine the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass to discover how his skilled use of language painted a realistic portrait of slavery and removed some common misconceptions about slaves and their situation.

One of Douglass's goals in his autobiography is to illustrate beyond doubt that slavery had an insidious, spirit-killing effect on the slaveholder as well as the slave.

This lesson plan will explore the wide-ranging debate over American slavery by presenting the lives of its leading opponents and defenders and the views they held about America's "peculiar institution."

Many accounts portray Harrison's image as manufactured and Van Buren's image also open to criticism and ridicule. This lesson offers students the opportunity to reflect on the nature of the candidates in 1840. Though intended for the teacher, all or part of the following background information may be useful for some students.

Sometimes, people will fight to keep someone else from being treated poorly. Disagreement over slavery was central to the conflict between the North and the South. The nation was deeply divided.

Frederick Douglass's 1845 narrative of his life is a profile in both moral and physical courage. In the narrative Douglass openly illustrates and attacks the misuse of Christianity as a defense of slavery. He also reveals the turning point of his life: his spirited physical defense of himself against the blows of a white "slave-breaker."

By 1828, the United States had changed greatly, though it was still a young country. Instead of 13 states, there were 24, and enough territory to make quite a few more. What was the source of Andrew Jackson's popularity?

Many accounts portray the campaign of 1840 as almost exclusively about image, and manufactured images at that. This lesson gives students the opportunity to reflect on that point of view as they analyze campaign documents and accounts. Though intended for the teacher, all or part of the following background information may be useful for some students.

Popular sovereignty allowed the settlers of a federal territory to decide the slavery question without interference from Congress. This lesson plan will examine how the Kansas"“Nebraska Act of 1854 affected the political balance between free and slave states and explore how its author, Stephen Douglas, promoted its policy of popular sovereignty in an effort to avoid a national crisis over slavery in the federal territories.

Students demonstrate their knowledge of life before the Civil War, with an emphasis on differences between the North and South.

How were party politics reflected in the campaign of 1828? What were the positions of the fledgling Democratic Party and its opposition?

More Americans lost their lives in the Civil War than in any other conflict. How did the United States arrive at a point at which the South seceded and some families were so fractured that brother fought brother?

The focus of this lesson is the Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Students will put themselves in the shoes of the men of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment as they read, write, pose, and then create a comic strip about these American heroes.

Students are asked to use the provided source material to answer the central historical question: Why did African Americans join the Union Army during the Civil War?

The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to the Missouri Compromise and the issues associated with the expansion of slavery in the Antebellum period of United States history. Students will begin the activity by creating a map that represents the Missouri Compromise's impact on the United States. This map will serve as a backdrop for the activity while introducing students to political and cultural sectionalism (northern and southern states and the issue of slavery) in the early 1800s. After students complete the map, they will answer several questions using it. Students will also be prompted to examine aggregated data from the 1820 Census and a map titled "Mapping Slavery in the Nineteenth Century" to make comparisons and draw conclusions about slavery, specifically in Missouri.

In this lesson, created in partnership with the Association for Cultural Equity, students discover how the banjo and music making more generally among slaves contributed to debates on the ethics of slavery. They listen to slave narratives, examine statistics, and read primary sources to better understand how slavery was conceptualized and lived through in the 18th and 19th centuries. Throughout the lesson, students return to videos created by Alan Lomax of pre-blues banjo player Dink Roberts as a way to imagine what music among slaves in the United States may have sounded like.

Author: Katie Frazier, Museums at W&LStudents will examine a ceramic object made by David Drake (about 1800-about 1870), an enslaved person who lived on a plantation in Edgefield, South Carolina. As an enslaved individual, Drake was denied the basic rights of learning how to read and write. Despite writing being illegal for enslaved people, David Drake was known for writing his name and poetry on the ceramics he made. He wanted to express his feelings about life, religion and his own identity as an enslaved person.