preview

The Pros And Cons Of Slavery

Decent Essays

Throughout the nineteenth century, slavery was a prevalent institution that became one of the most profitable organizations in the United States. However, as the US attempted to form a more perfect union, history revealed that this “peculiar institution” was best suited elsewhere. Fortunately, many states in the northern parts of the US gradually leaned more towards anti-slavery, while the southern states continued to defend its honor. With the North establishing various freedom laws to release many of its slaves from bondage, the Southern slaves began to desire those same privileges. Although slavery did provide its benefits to the slaveowners, the harsh realities of bondage weighed a toll on the slaves themselves, which pushed them more and more towards an involuntary freedom. According to Matthew J. Calvin’s Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontier, since none of the Southern slaveowners were willing to succumb to the Northern ideals of slavery, bondsmen resorted to becoming runaways. These “seizures of freedom” were a typical outlet for slaves to escape the horrors and abuses of their slave-masters. Calvin states that these slaves would “steal themselves and their families,” in order to reach the lands that promised them freedom. Furthermore, Pensacola became a “beacon” that many enslaved people sought to reach. Not only was Pensacola a destination for fugitives, but the town also harbored free people and those that “had no intentions

Get Access