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5th grade · Social Studies · Unit 8 of 8

Slavery & Resistance

Enslaved people and their struggle for freedom

What your child practices

Practices the difference between indentured servitude and slavery, how enslaved people resisted slavery and kept and built their cultures, and free Black communities in early America.

Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards benchmark: 5.4.19.1; 5.4.21.2 · how enslaved people resisted slavery and kept their cultures, and indentured servitude and slavery

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. The slave trade took millions of people from Africa and broke apart families.
  2. In 1776 the Declaration said all men are created equal, yet slavery was legal in all 13 colonies.
  3. Enslaved people kept their culture alive with music, stories, food and faith. Phillis Wheatley became a famous poet.

Example: Phillis Wheatley became famous as what? She was enslaved, but she wrote. Her poems were published in 1773. Answer: a poet

Slavery & Resistance in Minnesota

In the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards, this is unit 8 of 8 in 5th grade Social Studies, after Explorers & Encounters.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Minnesota Department of Education (MDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Gradual abolition meant slavery…

    • was ended step by step over years
    • ended in one day
    • grew larger

  2. Question 2

    After the cotton gin (1793), slavery in the South…

    • grew because cotton became more profitable
    • stayed exactly the same
    • ended

  3. Question 3

    Why is it important to study slavery in early America?

    • it isn't
    • it only happened in Europe
    • it shaped the nation and still affects people today

  4. Question 4

    The slave trade affected Africa by…

    • making Africa richer
    • having no effect
    • taking millions of people and breaking apart families and communities

  5. Question 5

    Slave traders made money by…

    • buying and selling human beings
    • building schools
    • growing their own food

  6. Question 6

    Pennsylvania passed a gradual abolition law in…

    • 1619
    • 1865
    • 1780

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