A radical activist who calls for an immediate end to slavery, political and legal equality for African Americans, and denounces colonization schemes.


The time period before the Civil War.

Confederate States

A group of united southern states that formed the Confederate States of America, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. These states voted to secede from the United States between 1860 and 1861.


A system for selecting individuals from a group for military service.


A system under which people are treated as property, to be bought and sold, and are forced to work.

Enslavement/ Slavery



One who flees or tries to escape slavery.

Kings County

Kings County, New York originally consisted of six colonial towns: Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, and New Utrecht. During the 19th Century, as Brooklyn transformed from town to city, it absorbed some of the other towns.


Legal process for enslaved Africans to purchase their own freedom or be emancipated by slaveholder.

Mutual Aid

Arrangements made between people of a community to assist each other.


A technique used to sway people’s opinions, adopt a certain behavior, or perform a particular action.


The act of formally withdrawing from a political federation.


Abstinence from alcohol and the belief that it is wrong to drink.

Underground Railroad

A network of people and secret escape routes used by fugitives of slavery.


The name given to the group of states that were opposed to the secession of the Confederate states in the South. The Union states included California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

U.S. Colored Troops

The name given to the segregated troops of African-American men who fought in the Civil War.