Male Slaves In The 1800s

Sage Flowers
Period 4
October 7, 2014

US Cultural Socialization: African Male Slaves

For black women and men slavery was a devastating experience. In the early 1700's , European settlers in North America depended on African slaves for cheaper and more plentiful labor source.
Despite some common factors, male slaves were treated very differently than women slaves were. The first slaves brought to North America were males. There was more male slaves than women due to the fact that the male slaves could do more hard labor. Male slaves were considered more valuable because of their strength. They would do anything from building houses to plowing fields. Women slaves were not as much there for work but rather there for comfort for the males.
Women also helped to reproduce and make more slaves for the slave owners. Society treated this group of people this way because they felt as if they were inferior to them.
After the American Revolution (1775-1783), many citizens wanted slavery to be abolished. The U.S. Constitution acknowledged this desire, therefore counting each slave as three-fifths of a person. Though the slaves were not free, they were now somewhat considered a person.
Slavery was never widespread in the North, sometime between 1774-1804 slavery became abolished in all the the northern states. But unfortunately it remained vital in the Southern states. Even though Congress outlawed the slave trade in 1808, domestic trade grew.
The slave owners made a system of codes for the slaves to abide by. Rules such as: prohibition to read or write and their behavior and movement were restricted. Slaves who behaved well received awards while slaves who behaved poorly were punished. They were assigned different jobs so that they were less likely to organize a attack against the slave owner. Slaves married and had large families; most slave owners encouraged this but had no guilt for separating them if needed.
Between the 1830's and the 1860's, a movement to abolish slavery in America was brought upon the people. People from northern states like Frederick Douglass and some white supporters helped to protest. These people also helped fugitive slaves escape from their plantations to go safe houses. This helped 40,000 to 100,000 slaves reach freedom and helped to spread abolitionist feelings in the north.
A few years later, Abraham Lincoln was elected president.
After this, seven southern states seceded to form the Confederate States of America. The Civil War began soon after. The central Union were fighting to preserve the United States first and abolish slavery second. After the war ended, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which stated "slaves within any state, or designated part of a state...in rebellion,...shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." -Emancipation Proclamation. Afterwards, most black male soldiers joined the army. During the Reconstruction period, former slaves had the rights of citizenship and the right to vote. But it was difficult for the former slaves to find their way to freedom because of black codes and racist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan.
Some former slaves thought that the time after they were freed was harder than before when they were still slaves. A former slave, James Johnson, stated that "dat de years after de war was worser than befo." Most slaves were released from there slave owners without any money or shelter. Very few former slaves owned land, only about one-fifth former slaves owned some of the land they farmed. Because of this, many ex-slaves went back to their ex-owners to work for money. Since the ex-slaves were in poverty, the death rate
increased.
As reconstruction came to a end, Jim Crow laws, or segregation laws, came into play.
By 1885, most southern states required separate schools for blacks and whites. Education for African Americans was on the lower level, making it difficult for them to prosper. In some cases black children couldn't even go to school, instead they had to work. It was also required to have separation of blacks and white in railroad cars, hotels, theaters, restaurants, barber shops, and buses. Later the court established the "separate but equal" doctrine which would be used to assess racial segregation laws. But segregated facilities were anything but equal. More money was spent on the white people's education and restaurants while the black people merely got the white people's leftover books and chairs. But in 1855, The Massachusetts Legislature outlaws racially segregated schools. Segregation laws would fit into a conflict theorist idea because it is two sides fighting against each other.
People were trying to find ways to disenfranchise the blacks by taking away their right to vote. But the fifteenth amendment stated that they could not be denied the right to vote just because they were black. So they found other ways to disenfranchise them like the grandfather clause. Which states that men could vote if their father or grandfather could vote. But eventually these rules became
illegal.
The Black Civil Rights Movement, in 1955 to 1968, was a campaign to end racism and inequality for black people. Martin Luther King Junior used non-violent protests to stop laws that enforced segregation. The African Americans started rebelling by ignoring segregation rules, sitting on buses that were for white people, and sitting at the wrong lunch counters. Black musicians started promoting music and getting recognized by the public. John F Kennedy made racial segregation illegal by 1963. And from there on black people kept prospering and now many black people are actors, musicians, athletes, and political leaders. Even our president is African American which shows how much we have grown. This would be functionalist theory because its encouraging all of our different groups of society to work together.4 Today black and white people are treated the same and hopefully they will be forever.