Two Views of Slavery

The North and South have very different views on slavery. This has lead to lots of tension and fighting. When people were first settling here they had slaves. It has been going on for almost 100 years. Starting around the Revolutionary war the North became opposed to slavery. They had less use for them as time went on. The South, on the other hand, felt they needed slavery. They had to harvest tobacco and cotton as fast as possible. They knew they couldn’t do it themselves so they bought lots of slaves to work in their fields. They didn’t need to pay them and they were relatively cheap. In the events from the end of the Revolutionary War to the beginning of the Civil War many ideals about slavery changed. Slavery was slowly tearing us apart.

However, with Jefferson’s dislike for the institution he knew that to oppose the issue could tear the nation completely apart. In 1820, during James Monroe’s Presidency the Missouri Compromise was approved. The Missouri Compromise essentially regulated the balance for the admittance of Slave and Free States into the Union. In Thomas Fleming’s A Disease in the Public Mind the author, states that with the Compromise’s passing that Jefferson declared that it signaled the end of the Union of the nation as they had once known it. With this idea in mind, Fleming presents how the Missouri Compromise seemed unsettling for Jefferson, who believed that regulating the state’s choice to have slavery or not would not end the institution but only stir up more loathing for the Southern States. Along with this Fleming, points out how many slave owners made the claim that the slaves they owned were considered property and were entitled to their property to be preserved by the government. It was here that the first changes in the nation’s society and economics take place in the United States. With the further spread of slavery into the west, the abolitionist and anti-slavery movements began to rise changing the minds of many who lived in the North and even some in the South to look at their society as a whole, which formed the question whether the institution of slavery was a moral and just one. This idea of slavery being moral and moral in American society heavily relied on the religious

Throughout history there have been many victors in war, and through these victors they would claim all kinds of rewards. These rewards could range from money to slaves. The slaves that were captured were usually not discriminated by race, but when the United States took on slavery it was on a different scale. The slaves were stripped of their basic human rights, taken away from their home by force, and was trained to become better slaves. America had slaves for 245 years the slaves turned out to be a big part in the day to day life, without the slaves America would not be able to get to where they are at today. Even though half of the United States agreed that owning slaves and the idea of slavery was a good thing the other half of the United States did not treat the slaves any better. With the

In 1619, when slavery first began it was clear early on that it wouldn’t be a positive experience for its victims. The victims, typically people of African American decent, were not afforded any rights as human beings. They were excluded from the political system (not allowed to hold offices or vote); they were excluded from holding jobs of quality and forced to be slaves. Even as slaves they were denied many of the basic needs that were plentiful for many of America’s Caucasian citizens. African Americans as a whole had a limited amount of options during that time but the African American female slave carried not only the burden of being black but also being a female. Many of the experiences that black females had during this time differed a small bit from what their male counterparts might have experienced. I’ll explore the life of the black woman during slavery and her fight to have a normal life.

There are layers of oppression this young lady had to overcome. First, her initiate dignity as a human being. This was encapsulated in letter to Reverend Samson Occom, the first Native American to publish his writings in English, where she commended him on his ideas and beliefs of how the slaves should be given their natural born rights in America. She said, “…think highly reasonable what you offer in Vindication of their natural Rights: Those that invade them cannot be insensible that the divine Light is chasing away the thick Darkness which broods over the Land of Africa...” In other words, Phillis Wheatley found her freedom to be so deeply rooted in higher them thou and basically the institution of slavery is chastening that

Phillis Wheatley born in Gambia, Africa in 1753 was the first early African American slave poet. “A kidnapped African slave child, aged about seven years old” (Lauter 1297), she was brought to Boston where she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley. Phillis Wheatley’s first name was not given to her at birth she acquired her name by the ship that carried her to America in which it was name “The Phillis”. Susanna Wheatley chose the young African slave, because of her “humble and modest demeanor and the interesting features of the little stranger” (Odell 9). Phillis soon after being adopted into the Wheatley family “experienced

Phillis Wheatley was the first African American female slave to be published and to have a book of poems published.

Slaves; people who are the property of and wholly subject to another. Why did it begin in the first place? It was not until December 6th of 1865 when congress finally ratified a law to abolish slavery. However, words of the law still had not spread and it would take around a year for the slave owners to finally set the slaves free. The process of freeing the slaves was full of misery, pain, and constant insults by the majority of the white population. However, despite discouragement from the whites, the black people (with the support of some whites) pulled through and achieved the main goal of being independent. That event took a while to occur, the real question is how did blacks and whites resist slavery until it was finally abolished. How did the slaves counter the abuse and harassment of the slave owners? I hypothesized that the blacks were able to withstand the punishment and slowly undermine slavery due to their intelligence. And at the end of slavery, both races would be intellectually equal.

The history of slavery in the United States is a complex one full of many riveting characters and interesting events. Historians have spent extensive time researching slavery and its effects on the country from its institution until its end in 1865. One popular organization was the American Colonization Society. The society was founded in 1817 and had branches in all major areas of the United States from 1822 to 1913. The society found supporters in many different individuals. One of these characters is a Louisiana slave owner named John McDonogh. Contrary to the norms of the time, John McDonogh formulated a plan to free a select number of his slaves that would then be sent to colonize Liberia. I propose to look at the impact John McDonogh has on the Liberian colonization movement in Louisiana, the contributions he made to slavery as an institution in his local area, and the lasting legacy that he has established in the New Orleans area. .

The history of American Slavery has been recounted by many scholars, taking into account different perspectives. During the 1850’s an abolitionist movement began, gaining momentum to pass anti-slavery legislation. Slave owners concerned about the growing movement, decided to take the matter into their own hands and fight for their property rights. Now as historians look back and analyse slavery, many different ideologies are constituted. While the depiction of philosophy in history is a way to analyzing meanings of historical events, without it, it would be only times and dates, hence popular historians such as Howard Zinn, Paul Johnson, and Stanley Elkins twist historical events in slavery to promote their ideologies.

When people think of America, they think of a Christian country. Going all the way back to the beginning of the history of North America, many colonists came for religious reasons, most notably the Pilgrims, who landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 seeking refuge from the persecution by the Church of England because of their separatist beliefs. They saw America as a place where they could settle and be free to worship God how they saw fit. This idea was prevalent in early American history, including in the amending of the Constitution of the United States of America. Freedoms of all kind, including religion, were so important to Americans at the time that they put them in the first amendment of the Bill of Rights: that “Congress

Today, most American citizens would agree that slavery is unethical. They would agree that the concept of holding humans against their wills and forcing them to work in unbearable conditions is inhumane, and unjust. But, in 1776, Americans would’ve expressed a very different opinion on the matter. Americans saw nothing wrong with holding slaves captive, and some of the most influential people at that time (Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson) held slaves . The opinion of slavery by Americans has dramatically evolved over hundreds of years. During 1776 to 1860, the idea of slavery progressed from praise, to rejection. The opposition of slavery seen during this time is due to many underlying factors and forces.

During the middle of the nineteenth century slavery was a big part of the United States, not just to the economy but also to the start of the United States. With slavery becoming so important and ingrained to the nation, once it has started it was hard to stop. People believed that slavery was a good thing not just for themselves, but also for the slaves and when a different perspective was given on slavery. It brought out the true colors of slavery. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author communicated with the reader the horror of slavery in the United States that slaves faced by showing the dangers that their families feared, the treatment of slaves, how slaves rebelled against slavery, and the struggles that slaves had

Slavery has no single definition behind it because it is defined in so many different ways.

At first glance this poem by Phillis seems a bit off putting, but now that we know her background it will be a little clearer as to why she wrote what she wrote. Perhaps it was because she had conflicting feelings about the institution. In the above poem, it seems as though she praises slavery because it brought her to Christianity. But, in another poem, she wrote that slavery was a cruel fate.