This class will be primarily a lecture class, with opportunities for questions and answers.
Review handouts will be distributed as well as bibliographies of outside resources for those students who want to cover specific topics in greater depth.

Topics covered will include the following:
Week 1:
African Origins
Travel through the Middle Passage
Atlantic Slave Trade
Beginning of Slavery in Caribbean Nations
Beginning of Slavery in the United States
Legalization of Slavery
Slavery vs. Indentured Servitude

Week 2:
Royal African Company
Legal Status of Slaves vs. the U. S. Constitution
Direct Descendants of Africa vs. American-Born Slaves
Stoppage of Illegal Importation of Slaves
Slave Rebellions 
Slavery and the American Revolutionary War
Slavery and Presidential Policies
Fugitive Slave Act

Week 3:
Religion in the Slave Community
Antebellum Period
Impact of the Cotton Gin Invention
Free States vs Slave States
Missouri Compromise of 1820
Compromise of 1850
Abolitionism
Evolution of the African-American Community

Week 4:
Dred Scott Decision
Slavery and the U. S. Economy
Seneca Falls Convention -1848
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Abraham Lincoln 
The U. S. Civil War
Introduction to Part II: The U. S. Civil War - 1920