Pre-Civil War: Events that Lead to the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery

Early Efforts to End Slavery main idea- By the early 1800s, a large and growing amount of Americans demanded an immediate end to slavery.

The American Civil War is also referred to as the war between the Northern and Southern States or the Rebellion War that began in 1861. Slavery was regarded as the main cause leading to the start of the war, as a high level of discrimination against the African Americans existed upon their arrival in the United States. The African Americans were either sold and traded by the elders in their villages or plucked from their native countries for a sometimes deadly transatlantic journey to serve wealthy southern families. They were not viewed as peers but as laborers and farmers. Americans who were rich and owned large plantations took the African Americans as their slaves. They suffered as if they were not worthy of compensation including working without pay and the standard consequence was lynching. During the period, they fought for their freedom, which was not given to them until the Civil War was fought. Consequently, they aligned themselves with the white men who were also soldiers in fighting for their freedom.

Throughout the 1800s in America, slavery was a controversy between the north and the south. A Slave was one who was the property of another human being under law and was forced to obey them. The North felt that slavery was unfair and inhumane, whereas in the South, they felt as though slavery was crucial to their success. African American slaves were not allowed many rights: they were not allowed to testify in court against a white person, could not receive an education, or even sign contracts. Due to the brutality they faced each day, many slaves escaped with hopes to find freedom. The Underground Railroad, a system utilized by many runaway slaves to help them escape from the South to Canada, played a large role in the downfall of slavery and eventual abolition in the United States following the Civil War.

The reality of black’s service to the patriot cause in revolutionary America led most northern states to emancipate their slaves during or immediately after the war. Vermont provided for immediate emancipation in its 1777 constitution and by 1780, Pennsylvania enacted gradual emancipation. However, New York still heavily relied on slave labor in the city through the 1780s and this lead to the resistance of gradual emancipation in their state constitution or in legislative actions.

Throughout American history slave has resist their master, the system and the idea of slavery. These resistance has became of a key stone in the history of slavery. To understand what these resistance is, we will look at incident of the past to analyze how slave in the past resisted their master, the system and the idea of slavery.

It did not take too much longer for the other two states to outlaw slavery shortly after the revolution. In Southern States, the revolution seemed to have opposite effects. During the time of the American Revolution, ideas of emancipation for slaves were floating around. "White folk" is the South feared slaves being equal or even close to themselves; they also feared rebellion among their workers. "They feared that without slaves, it would be necessary to recruit a servile white workforce in the South, and that the resulting inequalities would jeopardize the survival of liberties" (Brinkley 120). This fear is what pushed white southerns to reinforce their authority over slaves. They executed men who planned slave rebellions such as Thomas Jeremiah. The reason that slavery existed was human nature, slavery was nothing

In this assignment I will be taking a further look into the history of slavery. When thinking of slavery the immediate thought that comes to mind is all the negative aspects of the system. Prior to this research, I was unaware of slave systems that were not based on the long labor hours and the torture of slaves. Granted, there were still forms of slavery that practiced these brutal rituals, where slaves were treated as animals and were malnourished. One prime example of this, is the book titled “Am I Not A Woman And A Sister”, looks at the history of a Bermudan slave named Mary Prince. Another example of slavery that will be incorporated in this paper will come from a source about a woman slave named Semsigul, born in Caucasus an area that

There is no doubt that the United States was built upon the hard work of Black-American slaves, referred to at the time as bondpeople, who were the main labor force in producing important American exports, such as cotton or tobacco, which were, in fact, the backbone of the American economy during that time. Due to bondpeople’s overall importance in keeping the United States the powerhouse that it was, the domestic slave trade was a value market that “‘was roughly three times greater than the total amount of all capital, North and South combined, invested in manufacturing, almost three times the amount invested in railroads, and seven times the amount invested in banks’”(23). In “‘In Pressing Need of Cash,’” Daina Ramey Berry, a professor for the Departments of History and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas, looks at a fifteen year period, from 1850-1865, of the economic factors of the domestic slave trade. Berry uses Steven Deyle’s findings in his study, "Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life” which examined both the "long-distance interstate trade" and the extensive local or "intrastate" trade of enslaved males and females, who were priced differently depending on their perceived market value (23). With Deyle’s findings, Berry specifically discusses the relationships among gender, age, skill, or type of sale and how those factors, generally, determined the priced paid of enslaved workers.

The states rights, the Fugitive slave act, and how the line could not totally hold in which states would be totally free, these slaves had it harsh but the only way to freedom was to the north. Some helping slave made a place to be free and help to get there like the underground railroad. States rights made it so these slaves could have that idea of freedom and liberty in this country. Some abolitionist wanted to free the slaves by peaceful means and some like John Brown did not think so and sought violence to be the key to freedom for these slaves. In 1859 John Brown led an attack on Harper's Ferry, an ammunition camp, he captured this camp and he saw that the only way to free slaves was guns and violence. After he captured the camp and armed some slaves he had to fight a militia and lost, he was hanged three days later. Many things happened because the idea of freedom in the south and slaves mind, especially the underground railroad growing and helping more slaves become free, but sometimes there was no help and so the slaves organized rebellions, one such huge one was Nat Turner's rebellion. Nat’s rebellion was a brutal rebellion, of slaves, going house to house killing plantation owners and freeing more slaves as they went. But as all rebellions end in defeat, there was no revolution and they lost leaving a

The South was completely for this immoral institution, considering how slave labor was the backbone of their economy. Even the poor yeoman farmers who owned no slaves supported this institution, sometimes having the hope that they might one day gain enough wealth to afford slaves of their own. Even if they could not own slaves, slavery gave them the security that they would not have to suffer being at the bottom of the social ladder, having these slaves below them in a lower social class. Large planters relied on slavery to grow their crops such as cotton and indigo. As show in Document C, the Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state while Maine entered the Union as a free state. This benefited both sides to keep the balance between the states. Even so, the North still did not approve of this institution, believing in free labor instead. There were people who fought for the emancipation of all slaves and they were called abolitionists. Within these abolitionists came the extremists. As shown in Document F, John Brown was one of these. He gave his life fighting for the freedom of slaves from slavery, which resulted in the loss of his own sons as well as the lives of different volunteers who fought for the cause. Brown viewed slavery as unjust and wicked, saying that it needed to be put to an end. Also, as shown in Document M, William Lloyd Garrison was another

Some whites would accommodate the slaves and help them run away, “they were called abolitionist because they called for the abolition, or end, of slavery”(Zinn 139). In 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected, seven southern states seceded, and when Lincoln tried to take back a federal base, four more states seceded. This is when the southern seceded states formed the Confederacy and the war began. Lincoln was for freeing slavery but would allow no slaves to be free as long as the Union would be saved. Although, as the war became bigger the North became desperate to win, they acted against slavery, they did this by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, this freed the slaves in areas that were fighting against the union. Two years after the Emancipation Proclamation the Congressed passed the Thirteenth Amendment, ending all slavery in the U.S. Although they were now freed, they were still not thought of equal for many

Throughout the 1800’s, slavery was a very widespread and common thing in all of the United States. In Tennessee, though, there was a large amount involvement in slavery. Almost all the African Americans living in Tennessee were slaves, and about ¼ of all people living in Tennessee were slaves. Throughout the entire state of Tennessee there were more than 275,000 slaves, and they made up ¼ (25%) of the population. 25% of white families owned slaves, and while these families made a large portion of the population, most families owned a small number of slaves. There was one person in Tennessee who owned more than 300 slaves, 47 people owned more than 100 slaves, and more than ¾ of all slave masters held less than 10 slaves.

Gabriel Prosser was an enslaved blacksmith who devised a slave rebellion that was going to take place in Richmond in the summer of 1800. However, before the rebellion took place, his plans were leaked and the event could not take place. Along with twenty-five of his followers, two of which were his brothers, Prosser was taken captive and hanged. His plot led to the Virginia legislature placing restrictions on free blacks, it also prohibited the education, power to assembly, and hiring out of slaves so another rebellion could not be devised. This infuriated the North, who thought that everybody should have the right to education and led to disagreement between the North and South.

When you think of the abolishment of slavery, what is the first place you think of? Was it the United States? Maybe even Africa? Although these two regions are well discussed in the history of slavery there are for more areas that were involved. For the purpose of this paper, the two regions that have been chosen are the United States and Haiti. The United States was colonized by a mix of different races. The most predominant were English settlers and Haiti was predominantly French settlers. These two regions bought, sold and traded slaves by the use of the Transatlantic Slave trade. However, both the United States and Haiti played a significant role in the abolishment of slavery.

During many years there were groups that fought the cause to end slavery in the United States one of the group was called the Abolitionist movement in the United States of America they fought for a nation that valued personal freedom and believed "all men were created equal." Some of the people behind the fight against slavery were the following: Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Nee Harriet Ross, Harriet Beecher Stowe, President Abraham Lincoln and many others. The abolition movement became an important element of political parties. Although the Native American Party (derisively called the Know-Nothing Party because when member were asked about the secretive group they claimed to "know nothing"). The law that was created