• How slavery shaped social and economic life in the South after 1800 (e.g. the cotton gin and the opening of new lands in the South and West led to increased demands for slaves; differences in the lives of plantation owners, poor free black and white families and slaves; methods of passive and active resistance to slavery; escaped slaves and the Underground Railroad).
• Different economic cultural and social characteristics of slavery after 1800 (e.g. the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, how slaves forged their own culture in the face of oppression, the role of the plantation system in shaping slaveholders and the enslaved, the experiences of escaped slaves).

• The Migrations of Fugitive Slaves
• Seeking Liberty Lesson Note-taking Chart

1. Ask students to brainstorm a list of any laws of another nation that they know are different from those of the United States.
2. Record the answers on the chalkboard, a flipchart, or a transparency.
3. Ask students to look at the list and decide whether any of the laws they have mentioned seem harsher and less just than those of the United States. Then, ask students whether any of the laws they listed seem milder and more just than those of the United States.
4. Explain that while slavery remained a constant in the United States between 1787 and 1865, there were changes in the fugitive slave law, territories where slavery was banned or permitted, the international slave trade, immigration law and citizenship requirements (both for immigrants and free persons of color). Direct students to read the narrative, Runaway Journeys focusing on gleaning information about U.S. policies and other countries' policies towards fugitive slaves from the United States from the segments "Going South and West," "Up North," and "Canada, the Promised Land."
5. Supplement details about U.S. laws from the textbook or a summary handout.

1. Explain to students that the Fugitive Slave Law was a push factor, causing some slaves to emigrate outside of the United States in search of personal security. The countries they moved to often had laws favorable to these immigrants, thus serving as pull factors.
2. Divide the class into teams/panels to research and present a summary of the laws of:

   1. Canada;
   2. England, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain (and their respective Caribbean colonies);
   3. Mexico and Haiti (following their independence from Spain and France, respectively.

   Ask students to determine what (if any) laws in these foreign countries regulated the following from 1808 to 1865:

   1. Slavery: Was it legal to have slaves in this country? If so, what personal or legal rights did a slave have? Did the country participate in the international slave trade?
   2. Immigration: What were the rules regarding immigration to this country? Were there any restrictions based on education, race, or ethnicity?
   3. Citizenship: Was there a method for an immigrant to become a naturalized citizen? If so, how many years of residency were required and were there literacy tests? Were there any restrictions based on race or ethnicity?
   4. Racial Discrimination: Were there any laws against discrimination in areas such as jobs, education, public accommodations and housing, or hate crimes? If so, did these laws address racial inequalities?

3. Ask each panel to report back to the class. Students should take notes in a chart format so that it will be easy to retrieve information (sample follows).
4. As a class, discuss the following:

   1. Which countries in North America and the Caribbean seemed to offer fugitive slaves the best opportunity for a new life?
   2. Which countries in North America and the Caribbean had little to offer fugitive slaves?
   3. Was the North or far West of the United States, despite the Fugitive Slave Law, still more attractive than emigration outside of the United States?

Ask students to select two of the countries they have learned about and to write a formal five-paragraph essay comparing and contrasting whether their laws were attractive to fugitive slaves from the United States. Evaluate on a 20-point scale (which may be multiplied by five to convert to 100-point scale or for conversion to letter grades) using the following rubric:

• The Schomburg Center has numerous images of African Americans in the nineteenth century. Visit Images of 19th Century African Americans, an online digital collection at: http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/images_aa19/main.html. Additional images of African American Women Writers of the 19th Century are available at the Schomburg Center's digital library collection at: http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/.
• The Library of Congress' American Memory Collection features over seven million online digital documents. It is a rich resource for a wide variety of documents about the African-American experience, including the online exhibit African-American Odyssey. American Memory's homepage is: http://memory.loc.gov/ and African-American Odyssey is at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/. The segment on "Western Migration and Homesteading" can be accessed at: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam009.html.

• Foreign Languages: Collaborate with foreign language teachers to locate literature and historical essays on slavery and freedom in other languages. Some may be classic discourses such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes) or Pope Gregory XVI's 1839 Supremo Apostolatus, the first limited condemnation of slavery by the Roman Catholic Church. Or, they may be proclamations, such as the July 6, 1816, decree abolishing slavery by Simon Bolivar and Boisrond Tonerre's Haitian Act of Independence, from January 1, 1804.
• Art/Graphic Design: Students locate images associated with fugitive slaves who emigrated from the United States to Canada and prepare a display with captions and a brief summary of Canada's legal protections of fugitive slaves from the United States. A great deal of information about communities in Ontario is at: http://olivetreegenealogy.com/can/ont/blacks.shtml. Quebec also has a well-illustrated site at: http://www.qesn.meq.gouv.qc.ca/mpages/.