Slavery Essay

The introduction of Africans to America in 1619 set off an irreversible chain of events that effected the economy of the southern colonies. With a switch from the expensive system of indentured servitude, slavery emerged and grew rapidly for various reasons, consisting of economic, geographic, and social factors. The expansion of slavery in the southern colonies, from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to just before America gained its independence in 1775, had a lasting impact on the development of our nation’s economy, due to the fact that slaves were easy to obtain, provided a life-long workforce, and were a different race than the colonists, making it easier to justify the immoral act.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of African slavery in America in the antebellum by late eighteenth century and before the antebellum crisis as discussed in Paul Finkelman’s book: Defending Slavery.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” - The Declaration of Independence

Slave as defined by the dictionary means that a slave is a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. So why is it that every time you go and visit a historical place like the Hampton-Preston mansion in Columbia South Carolina, the Lowell Factory where the mill girls work in Massachusetts or the Old town of Williamsburg Virginia they only talk about the good things that happened at these place, like such things as who owned them, who worked them, how they were financed and what life was like for the owners. They never talk about the background information of the lower level people like the slaves or servants who helped take care and run these places behind the scenes.

Black people in the U.S have been fighting for themselves since the birth of America. Many today say that it will never stop. They may say that the challenges they face will never disappear. During the 1800s Blacks went through extreme hardships. Most of which were regarding slavery and the many attempts to put an end to it. The title of Howard Zinn’s Chapter Nine in A people’s History of the U.S represents much more than a typical reader would presume. The title has a meaning that represents a bulk of black history in the United States of America. The chapter title “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom” represents the everlasting fight that black people in the United States of America have had to put up for their own rights and freedom because blacks fought during the time of slavery and didn’t give up, the time period spent fighting to end slavery, and even after Slaves were freed they have had to continue fighting for the reason that they weren’t given true freedom.

     Slavery caused a great impact in the evolution of history. Slavery was the cause of many wars and disruptions along the time line that dates to the present twenty--first century. People of color were deprived of having a life of their own and going about normal ways because of the greed that consumed society. The role of slavery in society attributed to the desperation and anger the slaves felt and lead them to strike against their owners in many occasions. Despite the threats and the unfair treatment, many people of color retaliated and firmly stood up for their rights as equal human beings. It was absurd how society based their government on religion at one point and still managed to dispossess people of

Slavery is a system in which human beings can be owned by other people and are treated effectively like property in the eyes of the law. Slavery was introduced to the colonies in 1619, at Jamestown, Virginia, where unskilled workers were needed to farm tobacco (“Slavery(Issue)”) . The South needed slaves more due them having a more agricultural lifestyle. However, the North, which was based upon manufacturing and trading and basically no slaves by the time of the Constitution. During that time, indentured servants were more popular due to less expense and danger than the slaves. However, after the invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, which established cotton as a lucrative

The time period from 1775 to 1830 was full of changes. The United States was developing into its own country, with its own freedoms. As the government began to settle, the issue of slavery was ever present. Nobody was quite sure of how to handle slavery. While some people fought to have slavery abolished, others completely opposed the idea of no longer having slaves. It was during this time period that many slaves managed to gain their freedom; however slavery as an institution continued to expand. Even though the many states passed laws outlawing the practice of slavery, the slave trade in the states that still allowed slavery grew immensely.

Between the time period of 1840 and 1860, slavery played an influential and pivotal role in the development of a new southern lifestyle. In the struggle for dominance in America, slavery was the South’s stronghold and the underlying cause in much of their motives for many of the economic instigations along with the affirmative political actions. By dominating the everyday southerner’s life, slavery also dominated the economic and political aspects of life during the height of the slavery period. By the 1840’s the Southern economy had become almost entirely slave and and agriculturally dependent. Without the dependence of slaves in the south, a person was to remain landless, poverty stricken or struggling to sustain life through the means

From 1607-1750 the development of the English colonies flourished while indentured servitude began to diminish. This lead to the development of slavery and the growth of plantations. There were many events that caused slavery to expand. Bacon’s Rebellion and Maryland’s law establishing slavery as inheritable through generations were two of many events that took part in the development of the institution of slavery.

“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.”

Slavery was practiced throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, as African-American slaves helped build the economic foundations of the new nation. However, as the new nation began to become demographically and economically divided, the debate over slavery was provoked. Need for cheap labor for the demand of cotton solidified the central importance of slavery to the South’s economy, whereas slavery was not as economically viable in the industrialized northern states as it was in southern states. The South called slavery a ‘necessary evil’ whereas the North referred to it as ‘the peculiar institution’ highlighting their sectional divisions. The North questioned the morality of slavery resulting in a growing abolition

Slavery was a disgraceful part of our history for many years. Its start grew from a need for a labor source in the new and growing America. The Southern economy thrived from slave labor whereas the North did not rely on the labor of slaves. This paper will prove that slavery failed in the North because in the North there was no need for large labor to support the economic structure compared to the South where slavery was needed to support their economy. There are three main points that will be used to support this. They are; Northern industry and Southern industry were very different, the slave population was smaller in the North because of the different economy in the North, and the smaller slave population and less

Slavery, was an institution strongly integrated into American society. This economic system was primarily used in the Southern states of the United State on the plantation areas where tobacco, rice, corn, and eventually cotton were grown. Inspirations of freedom and liberty spread throughout the United States prior to the American Revolution. Along with thoughts of liberty came thoughts of emancipation of this system. “Even after the prolonged battle for independence, when cries for liberty rang throughout the countryside, opportunities for both emancipation and free blacks diminished.” Slavery stilled had a strong hold of the foundations of the southern economy. The “peculiar system” continued to grow rapidly, especially at the beginning of the nineteenth century, within the United States. Slavery, was an injustice to both male and female slaves however, women would endure more physical and emotional injustices than men by the means of themselves and their children.

Slavery, especially in America, has been an age old topic of riveting discussions. Specialist and other researchers have been digging around for countless years looking for answers to the many questions that such an activity provided. They have looked into the economics of slavery, slave demography, slave culture, slave treatment, and slave-owner ideology (p. ix). Despite slavery being a global issue, the main focus is always on American slavery. Peter Kolchin effectively illustrates in his book, American Slavery how slavery evolved alongside of historical controversy, the slave-owner relationship, how slavery changed over time, and how America compared to other slave nations around the world.