Chapter 6 Quiz: Slavery in the Mountains — The Hidden History of Black Appalachia

1. According to the 1860 census, enslaved people were present in:

2. In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, enslaved people constituted approximately what percentage of the population in most counties by 1860?

3. The slave hiring system in Appalachia involved:

A) Slaveholders renting the labor of enslaved people to other parties for specified periods
B) Enslaved people being allowed to hire themselves out and keep their wages
C) Free Black workers being hired at wages below market rate
D) The federal government hiring enslaved laborers for road construction

4. The Kanawha Valley salt industry is significant to the history of mountain slavery because:

A) It was the only place in Appalachia where enslaved people were used
B) It employed 2,000 to 3,000 enslaved workers, making it one of the largest concentrations of enslaved industrial labor in the United States
C) Enslaved workers in the salt industry were eventually freed by their owners
D) The salt industry relied exclusively on free labor

5. The typical Appalachian slaveholder owned:

6. The historian Wilma Dunaway argues that the small scale of mountain slavery:

A) Made it a benign institution compared to plantation slavery
B) Made some aspects of slavery worse, particularly family separation and social isolation
C) Had no significant effect on the experience of enslaved people
D) Made it easier for enslaved people to escape

7. Enslaved people at Buffalo Forge, an iron-making complex in Rockbridge County, Virginia, were:

A) Unskilled laborers who performed only manual tasks
B) Highly skilled workers, some of whom were master refiners responsible for converting pig iron to wrought iron
C) Exclusively women and children
D) Free Black workers who were paid full wages

8. The "overwork system" at iron furnaces and salt works allowed enslaved people to:

9. Free Black communities in antebellum Appalachia were formed primarily through:

A) Large-scale emancipation movements
B) Manumission by slaveholders, self-purchase by enslaved people, and birth to free mothers
C) Immigration from Northern states
D) Federal legislation guaranteeing freedom in mountain counties

10. The chapter argues that the erasure of Black Appalachian history serves which of the following interests?

A) The construction of a white regional identity separate from the plantation South
B) Support for "culture of poverty" explanations that blame Appalachian problems on character rather than structure
C) The simplification of Appalachian politics into a story about class rather than race
D) All of the above

11. In most Appalachian counties, the majority of white families:

A) Owned large numbers of enslaved people
B) Owned no enslaved people, but lived in a society shaped by the institution of slavery
C) Actively opposed slavery through organized abolitionist movements
D) Had no contact with enslaved people of any kind

12. The Underground Railroad in Appalachia was facilitated partly by:

A) The flat, open terrain of the mountain valleys
B) Strong federal enforcement of anti-slavery laws
C) Quaker communities, sympathetic families, and the concealment offered by rugged mountain terrain
D) A formal network of railroads that transported fugitives

13. The "Lost Cause" narrative contributed to the erasure of mountain slavery by:

A) Accurately documenting the experiences of enslaved people in the mountains
B) Reframing the Civil War as a conflict over states' rights rather than slavery, and writing Black people out of the mountain narrative
C) Promoting the study of African American history in Appalachian schools
D) Encouraging former slaveholders to document their enslaved workers by name

14. Which of the following geographic patterns characterized slavery in Appalachia?

A) Enslaved populations were uniformly distributed across all terrain types
B) The valleys had higher proportions of enslaved people than the ridges, and counties with industrial operations had disproportionately high enslaved populations
C) The highest enslaved populations were found in the most mountainous, isolated counties
D) Slavery was concentrated exclusively in urban areas

15. The chapter argues that non-slaveholding white Appalachians were connected to the institution of slavery because:

A) They all secretly owned enslaved people
B) They benefited from racial hierarchy, aspired to slaveholding as a marker of status, and shared the racial ideology that justified the institution
C) They were legally required to own enslaved people
D) They had no knowledge that slavery existed in their communities

16. The WPA Slave Narrative Collection is valuable for studying mountain slavery because:

A) It provides complete and unbiased accounts of slavery from all perspectives
B) It includes first-person testimony from formerly enslaved people, despite limitations of age, interviewer bias, and power dynamics
C) It was compiled by formerly enslaved people themselves without any outside involvement
D) It documents every enslaved person in Appalachia by name

17. The chapter describes which of the following as forms of resistance practiced by enslaved people in the mountains?

A) Running away, work slowdowns, maintaining cultural and spiritual life, and occasional violence
B) Filing lawsuits in federal court
C) Organizing large-scale armed rebellions
D) Petitioning the state legislature for emancipation

18. The chapter uses the analogy of millionaires in a community to argue that:

A) Slaveholders in Appalachia were as wealthy as modern millionaires
B) Even though most white families did not own enslaved people, the slaveholding elite shaped the entire community's economic and social life
C) Slavery was irrelevant to the mountain economy
D) Non-slaveholding whites were wealthier than slaveholders

19. According to the chapter, the myth that "there was no slavery in Appalachia" is best described as:

A) An honest mistake based on limited historical research
B) An accurate description of the northern Appalachian region
C) An active construction that serves specific political and psychological interests
D) A minor academic debate with no real-world consequences

20. The Affrilachian movement, mentioned at the end of the chapter, is:

A) A mining industry advocacy group
B) A deliberate effort to reclaim Black Appalachian identity and insist on the presence that the "no slavery" myth denies
C) A political party in eastern Kentucky
D) A historical reenactment organization