Influence Of Slavery On American History

The United States of America, a symbol for freedom and liberty throughout the world, was built upon the backs of millions of vulnerable slaves. By the time we became a country in 1776, slavery was engrained in many of our founding fathers minds as the source of economic wellbeing. Each state, community and individual had their own ideas about the institution and whether it was morally or constitutionally right. It is one of the highest debated topics in the history of our country. Slavery, controversial as it may be, was an integral part of the maturation of our young nation.

One of the main topics of concern for many decades was when new territories want to enter the union, will they be free or slave states? Henry Clay, one of the great compromisers, was able to work all sorts of different compromises on several issues throughout the years. One of his most famous compromises was the Missouri compromise. This allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, and every new state following would be free North of the Mason-Dixon line. This would try to stop the expansion of slavery, and for a short while, it did. During this time period, most Americans believed in manifest destiny, so they expanded westward. As many Southern’s moved west, they brought with them their slaves. Furthermore, they moved to places where slavery made economic sense, for example

With its warm climate and fertile soil, the South became an agrarian society, where tobacco, rice, sugar, cotton, wheat, and hemp defined the economy (“Colonial Economy”). Because of a labor shortage, landowners bought African slaves to work their massive plantations. Even small-scale farmers often used slave labor as a means to help increase their production rate ("John C. Calhoun's Defense of Slavery"). After the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, cotton could finally be mass produced (“Slavery”). However, in order to pick all the cotton, slave labor would be needed, thus the reason for hundreds of thousands of imported slaves during the 1700s. In the United States, a stronger case can be made that slavery played a critical role in economic development. Cotton, grown primarily with slave labor, provided over half of all US export earnings. By 1840, the South grew sixty percent of the world's cotton and provided about seventy percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry. (“Colonial Economy”). In addition, due to the South specializing in cotton production, the North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the slave South, including textile factories, a meat processing industry, insurance companies, shippers, and cotton brokers (“Colonial Economy”). By the time the Civil War erupted, 4.9

In the early ages of the United States, slavery was a key component in its success in regards to manufacturing for the south. However slavery was a form of horrible labor that blacks had to deal with. They worked long hours in the field, had no freedoms, were not considered citizens, and mistreated by their masters. As time went on slaves began break free from slavery after the civil war and during the reconstruction period where the 13th,14th,and 15th amendments were added to the constitution. During the period of 1775 to 1830, though it was a short time, was a high point for slavery in that change was starting to happen before the civil war.

The institution of slavery, which was a system in which African Americans were forced into labor and had their freedom restricted, was seen as a positive necessity to Southerners. Slavery was seen as though it was essential, it was seen as an entity they could not live without. The Peculiar Institution began in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia when the colonist first began arriving in Colonial America. Slavery was first introduced when the colonists, who happened to be privileged in the sense that they never did their own work, needed to get their work done. Since no one wanted to do the work such as building houses, farming

Although slavery is no longer an issue in the modern era, it was an important predicament from 1776 to 1852. This conflict split America in half, those for slavery and those opposed to slavery. As time passed, the opposition to slavery grew tremendously. Starting with America’s Declaration of Independence where it states “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Starting with the creation of America, there have been those opposed to slavery, holding the Declaration of Independence as a weapon against it specifically because “all men are created equal.”

During the period before the civil war the issue of slavery began affecting American politics. Slavery was a topic that was becoming more involved in every part of the politics and moving forward as a country. Slavery became an issue in a variety of topics; creating a new state, did individual freedom won in the revolution include the right to enslave another person, should southern non-slave holders be able to vote, could a law be passed to forbid discussing a specific issue in Federal government, and finally could a State government pass a law to nullify a Federal law? These are all the key questions that American politicians had to answer without causing a civil war show how important the issue of slavery was becoming.

After the annexation of Texas and the Mexican American war, controversy over slavery had once again arose to a national level. The vast territory that the United States had acquired raised questions such as, should the territory allow slavery or should it be proclaimed as a free one? Or should the inhabitants be able to choose for themselves? The sectional unity in slave states and in free states were threated especially when California petitioned the congress to enter the union as a free slave challenging the balance of slave and free states organized by the Missouri Compromise.

Introduction During the mid eighteen hundreds there were high tensions between the Northern United States and the Southern United States. One of the main causes of the tensions between the Northern and Southern States of the United States was Slavery. After the United States won the United States-Mexican War there was a large portion of new land for the United States but there was one problem. The Northern part of the United States did not want to have slavery but the Southern part of the United States wanted slavery. To compromise they split the remaining and new land equally among the Northern and Southern parts of the United States.

Slavery has been entwined with American history ever since Dutch traders brought twenty captive Africans to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Slavery in America is a subject with minimal truths and stories rarely told. The public school system excludes the fact that eight of the first twelve American presidents were major slaveholders. Emancipation brought freedom, but not approximation. The civil rights movement killed Jim Crow, but shadows remained. Affirmative Action created opportunities, but racism continues.

As America began to expand, first with the lands gained from the Louisiana Purchase and later with the Mexican War, the question of whether new states admitted to the union would be slave or free. The Missouri Compromise passed in 1820 made a rule that prohibited slavery in states from the former Louisiana Purchase the latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes north except in Missouri. During the Mexican War, conflict started about what would happen with the new territories that the US expected to gain upon victory. David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso in 1846 which would ban slavery in the new lands. However, this was shot down to much debate. The Compromise of 1850 was created by Henry Clay and others to deal with the balance between slave and free states, northern and southern interests. One of the provisions was the fugitive slave act that was discussed in number one above. Another issue that further increased tensions was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. It created two new territories that would allow the states to use popular sovereignty to determine whether they would be free or slave. The real issue occurred in Kansas where proslavery Missourians

The United States is a nation that values freedom; it is a nation in which “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” are considered to be unalienable rights. European settlers arrived in America in 1607 and founded the first colony in Jamestown, Virginia. In 1619, the first African slaves were brought into Jamestown, marking the beginning of many atrocities in American history. The history of slavery in America contradicts the values that are at the very core of this nation and this history predates the formation of the United States. America is a nation built on the suffering and labor of African Americans. The United States has had a short 240 years of existence, the majority of which were spent with slavery existing in our nation as

One of the greatest violent and horrifying forms of American history was the establishment of slavery. In 1619 Slavery began in Jamestown, Virginia when the very fewest slaves were brought to America from Africa. African-Americans were known to be very healthy people and in good shape because of their hard work of surviving in Africa. Many Africans had to do work, walk miles everyday to just get water for their families. As the slaves entered America, they were dispersed throughout the colonies. The main source for money and cheap labor in America was the tobacco agriculture. Slaves were put to work in the tobacco fields. This was an unnatural state for the human soul to be in bondage and captivity ever since the beginning of civilization. Patrick Henry stated, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” Through these centuries the slaves rose up and rebelled.

The controversies surrounding slavery have been established in many societies worldwide for centuries. In past generations, although slavery did exists and was tolerated, it was certainly very questionable,” ethically“. Today, the morality of such an act would not only be unimaginable, but would also be morally wrong. As things change over the course of history we seek to not only explain why things happen, but as well to understand why they do. For this reason, we will look further into how slavery has evolved throughout History in American society, as well as the impacts that it has had.

When Eli Whitney’s invented the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable for the South. This machine reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. The cotton gin increased in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton which increased the need for a large amount of cheap labor, in other words, slaves. The southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and slavery. The South 's Cotton became the cash-cow for the southern economy. "The southern states produced two-thirds of the world 's supply of cotton, the South had little manufacturing capability, about 29 percent of the railroad tracks, and only 13 percent of the nation 's banks. The South did experiment with using slave labor in manufacturing, but for the most part it was well satisfied with its agricultural economy" (Arrington, 2015). On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture. The northern industries would purchase the Southern cotton and produce it into the finished product. This differences