AP African American Studies: Resistance and Revolt: Stono, Haiti, and the United States (Drill 11)

Question 1. The South Carolina Negro Act of 1740 was passed in direct response to which of the following?

• A) The founding of Fort Mose in Spanish Florida, which formalized Spain’s offer of freedom to enslaved people who escaped British colonies
• B) The Stono Rebellion of 1739, in which enslaved people in South Carolina took up arms and marched toward Spanish Florida seeking freedom ✓
• C) A wave of coordinated urban uprisings in Charleston that targeted the colony’s merchant and planter class
• D) Denmark Vesey’s conspiracy of 1822, which exposed the vulnerability of South Carolina’s urban enslaved population to organized revolt

Explanation: The Stono Rebellion of September 1739 was the largest slave uprising in colonial North America. Enslaved people in South Carolina, many from the Kingdom of Kongo, seized weapons, killed white colonists, and marched south toward Spanish Florida, where Spain had promised freedom at Fort Mose. The rebellion was suppressed, but South Carolina’s colonial legislature responded the following year with the Negro Act of 1740, which severely restricted enslaved people’s movement, assembly, and access to literacy. Choice A describes Fort Mose accurately; it was a real free Black settlement in Spanish Florida that motivated escape attempts, but Fort Mose’s existence was the destination that drew Stono participants southward, not itself the event that triggered this legislation; a student who knows Fort Mose but conflates cause and context will find this distractor attractive. Choice C invents an urban merchant-class rebellion that did not occur. Choice D places Denmark Vesey’s 1822 conspiracy more than eighty years after this 1740 act, a student who knows Vesey as a major South Carolina resistance figure but is uncertain on dates may find this plausible. [Skill 1A, Applying disciplinary knowledge: concepts and developments]

Question 2. The provision in the Negro Act of 1740 criminalizing the teaching of enslaved people to write most directly suggests which of the following about the goals of the South Carolina colonial legislature?

• A) Colonial legislators sought to limit enslaved people’s ability to communicate in writing, which they viewed as a means of organizing and coordinating resistance ✓
• B) Colonial legislators were primarily concerned with protecting the economic value of enslaved people by limiting distractions from agricultural labor
• C) The legislature was responding to documented evidence that a literate enslaved person had organized the Stono Rebellion through written correspondence within the context described
• D) Colonial legislators feared that literate enslaved people would petition British courts or Crown officials for legal recognition of their freedom

Explanation: The source pairs two restrictions that reinforce each other: enslaved people cannot travel without a written ticket, and no one may teach enslaved people to write. Reading those two provisions together, the legislature’s concern with written communication as a tool of movement and coordination is visible on the face of the text. Restricting literacy directly limited the ability of enslaved people to produce or use the written documents, passes, letters, notices, that would enable organized activity. This inference is available from the source itself without requiring outside knowledge. Choice B mischaracterizes the legislature’s purpose; the act is structured around behavioral control and suppression of resistance, not protection of economic productivity. Choice C overstates what the historical record shows; there is no documented evidence that literacy caused the Stono Rebellion specifically; the legislature was acting on fear of future resistance, not a proven prior mechanism. Choice D introduces British courts or Crown petitions as a frame, which has no basis in the text or in the historical context of colonial South Carolina at this time. [Skill 2B, Source perspective and purpose]

Question 3. Which of the following best explains why the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) had greater long-term significance for the African diaspora than did any of the major slave revolts within the United States?

• A) The Haitian Revolution was larger in scale and involved more enslaved participants than any revolt in American history
• B) The Haitian Revolution received support from French abolitionist societies, giving it organizational resources that US revolts lacked
• C) The Haitian Revolution succeeded in establishing an independent Black republic, permanently demonstrating that enslaved people could seize and hold political power ✓
• D) The Haitian Revolution inspired immediate successful copycat revolts across the American South that forced the US government to accelerate emancipation in the time described

Explanation: The Haitian Revolution’s unparalleled significance lies in its outcome: it produced the first Black-led republic in the Western Hemisphere and the only successful large-scale slave revolt in the modern era. This permanently altered what was politically imaginable, both for enslaved people who drew inspiration from Haiti and for enslaving classes who were terrified by it. Choice A is a substantially true statement, the Haitian Revolution was far larger than any US revolt, but scale alone does not explain long-term diasporic significance. The revolution matters not just because it was large, but because it succeeded and produced an independent state; students who select A have identified a real fact but missed the specific reason for Haiti’s lasting importance. Choice B is inaccurate: the Haitian Revolution was overwhelmingly driven by the enslaved population itself; French abolitionist influence was limited and inconsistent. Choice D overstates the effect: while Haiti’s example alarmed slaveholders and influenced Black resistance thought across the Americas, it did not trigger immediate successful revolts in the US South or prompt American emancipation negotiations. [Skill 1C, Patterns, connections, and context]

Question 4. Compared to Gabriel Prosser’s planned 1800 revolt and Denmark Vesey’s planned 1822 revolt, Nat Turner’s 1831 rebellion was historically distinctive because it

• A) was the only one of the three planned by a free Black man rather than an enslaved person
• B) involved a far larger organizational network drawn from multiple states and counties
• C) was the only one of the three that was actually carried out, resulting in deaths before being suppressed ✓
• D) was the only revolt whose leader explicitly cited the Haitian Revolution as his primary inspiration in the era in question

Explanation: Gabriel Prosser’s 1800 uprising in Virginia was betrayed before it began; Prosser and others were executed without the revolt taking place. Denmark Vesey’s 1822 plot in Charleston was also discovered and suppressed before execution; Vesey and dozens of others were hanged. Nat Turner’s rebellion was different: it actually occurred, with Turner and his followers killing approximately sixty white Virginians before being stopped. Choice A is incorrect, Denmark Vesey was the free Black man among the three; both Prosser and Turner were enslaved. Choice B more accurately describes Vesey’s extensive organizational network, not Turner’s rebellion, which was smaller and unfolded rapidly. Choice D is a plausible-sounding distractor, but there is no documented evidence that Turner cited Haiti as his primary inspiration; his stated motivation was religious; he described divine visions as his call to act. [Skill 1A, Applying disciplinary knowledge: comparison]

Question 5. A student argues that slave revolts and planned uprisings, even when unsuccessful, played a significant role in building the case for abolition in the United States. Which of the following best supports this claim?

• A) Revolts prompted many enslaved people to conclude that armed resistance was too dangerous, shifting energy toward legal channels instead
• B) Failed revolts led Southern states to pass harsher slave codes, which further restricted enslaved people’s daily lives and made slavery appear more permanent and stable
• C) The persistent threat of revolt convinced many large planters to voluntarily reduce their reliance on enslaved labor over time
• D) Revolts intensified national debates about slavery, energized abolitionist movements, and demonstrated that enslaved people refused to accept their condition ✓

Explanation: To support the claim that revolts contributed to abolition, evidence must show effects that pushed toward ending slavery. Choice D does this most directly: revolts sharpened national debates, gave abolitionists powerful evidence of enslaved people’s humanity and determination, and made it impossible for defenders of slavery to claim the enslaved were content. Choice A suggests revolts redirected rather than built the case for abolition, describing a retreat from armed resistance does not support the claim. Choice B now more concretely describes how harsher slave codes made slavery appear more entrenched and permanent, pointing away from abolition rather than toward it, and therefore does not support the student’s argument. Choice C is historically inaccurate: planters did not voluntarily reduce their reliance on enslaved labor, and slavery ended through war and political crisis, not planter recalculation. [Skill 3B, Support a claim with evidence]