Southern Slavery Research Paper

Slaves were not well cared for. They received the bare minimum for food, clothing, and sleeping arrangements. For example, where Frederick Douglass was a slave: “The men and woman slaves received, as

During the period of 1830-1860 slavery existed throughout the United States. The topic of slavery has a long history in the United States, beginning with the slaves used to cultivate tobacco in the southern colonies. When writing the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers realized they could not include any articles against slavery, for it would lead to the South not agreeing upon it. In the 1830’s to 1860’s, attitudes towards the institution of slavery varied throughout social classes and regions, ultimately settling with the North coming out against the expansion of slavery and the South for it.

Slavery began when the state’s economy began to expand and become more firmly entrenched. Farmeers found that using slaves were more profitable, and those who were able to afford slaves; bought them to work on big plantations. Slaves were also forced to work in the manufacturing labor force, especially the iron industry. By the 1860’s, slaves made up twenty-five percent of Tennessee’s population. With most of the state’s wealth in the land, the production of wheat, tobacco, corn, and cotton grew rapidly during that time period.

In James Oakes book, Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South, talks about the relationships between slaves and master liberal capitalism in southern United States during the nineteenth century. Slaves was a name given to blacks because of their color and their freedom once taking away. Freedom and unfreedom are experienced most by human relationship between men and women. The relationship which they produce was to survive and live on to reproduce. Therefore work and society was largely shaped by how people organize their lives.

If you were born in the 1860’s would you’ve owned slaves? Chances are you probably would have. If you owned slaves you probably treated them like objects that you owned and who have no rights. Slave owners barely fed slaves and they were treated poorly. When slaves were freed they didn't have equal rights, Not only were slaves not equal in society, but they also had to have church apart from whites as well as other public areas were segregated.

The existence of the slaves in the south was hard, also a persistent labor forced and abuse. They utilize them as field hand growing sugar, rice, tobacco, and most of the time cotton, but also they place them to work as house servants, artisans, carpenters, or ironworkers and countless of jobs took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, Charleston and South Carolina. Every slave was hold as property with the option of sold them or purchasing them or exchanged each moment their owners said. They had a lot of options to work, but the plantation works were split into pairs, the task system and gang system. The gang system was under the control of masters organizing slaves into categories of twenty-five employees managed through white supervisor or a

Texas had huge amounts of land that had fertile soil for crops where cotton was being made. Texas used slaves in order to assist in the dispatch of the production process. With this production of crops and cotton boosted the economy. These slaves were a huge asset to the economy. This is one reason why Texas was different from other Southern states in the Antebellum period. Another difference would be how many slaves were on plantations. Texas had many plantations and farms. More than any other southern states because of how big Texas was. With that being said, all these factors also made Texas into a Southern State. Texas had rich soil in which slaves helped with the production of cotton and other farming needs. All these factors put Texas in the category of the Souther States. While the south was taking advantage of slavery, the north was outraged. Northerners did not like the idea of slavery.

What does this account reveal about the nature of slavery and how slavery affected southern society?

Race has played an uncomfortably important role in History. From rich white land owning slave holders, producing mass amounts of

Shortly after the creation of the colonies, slavery was introduced and the dependence upon it grew exponentially. Southern states prospered with slavery, establishing plantations of hundreds of acres with just as many slaves to work. Virginia, the largest slave state, had a population of 747,610 in 1790, of which 292,627 were slaves. With Kentucky being carved out of Virginia and first settlers originating from Virginia, many expected the new state to follow Virginia’s harsh slave laws seen throughout the southern pro slavery states. But would the settlers of Kentucky, many former Virginians, keep things the same or would the influence of northerners also moving west force compromise to create, in the eyes of the south, a more lenient slave

“ Over a period of the Atlantic slave trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million slaves had been shipped from Africa, and 10.7 million had arrived n the Americas” (1). Now fast forward to before the time of the Civil War and think of how many more African Americans that have gotten kidnapped and brought to the Americas. That is a lot of African American people that were turned into abused slaves that had to work day and night for whites.

From 1775-1830, America saw its slavery institution expand. One major factor that contributed to the growth of enslaved African Americans was the increase in agriculture in the South. Cotton, a long standing staple crop of the southern states, was a very labor intensive crop to harvest. Because of this need for labor, many plantation owners and farmers continued to purchase slaves. In addition to the fact that cotton was very laborious to pick, plantation owners wanted more and more land to plant the crop on because it was such a success. As more land was obtained, more slaves were needed to work the land. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. This invention sparked an increase in the number of enslaved African Americans in the South

The white slaveholding class said the institution of slavery as a necessary evil: besides playing a part in the agricultural economy, Some said it was the only way to keep a wild pagan race in control.(http://www.everyculture.com)

Although slavery ended on December 6, 1865, it still exists in different forms in the United States. Modern day slavery consists of child labour, sex trafficking, bonded and forced labour, domestic servitude, and forced marriage. Two of the most common types of slavery in the States is made up of many underage workers and immigrants who came here to find a better future. Migrant workers is a widespread form of slavery, but is often not considered to fit the standard definition of slavery. This is a problem that should seriously be dealt with.

Let’s all come together as one to be able to stop slavery once and for all.