Preview

Slavery in the United States

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
671 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Slavery in the United States
First, I would dispute your assertion that slaves were being freed from 1775 to 1830. While slavery might have been stagnant from 1775 to the 1790s, slaves were not being freed. Slavery was just not expanding. Now, we may be having a semantic argument, as you use the word "many", and my opinion is that only a few slaves, in relation to the hundreds of thousands, about 500,000 by 1800, of slaves in the U.S. were freed after the Revolutionary War. And it also may be that you are looking at mostly Northern states where slavery never really took root. Northern states, which are in colder climates and in more mountainous regions, were never suited for the plantation-style slavery that took root in the South. And, after the Revolutionary War, many of these states abolished slavery during this period. But, again, these freed slaves were only a small minority of slaves held in the United States as the primary slave-holding area was the South and not the Northern states that abolished slavery.

Also, another way to freedom was escape. Slaves in the South, particularly Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia could escape south to Spanish Florida prior to 1819, the year that Andrew Jackson conquered the state and forced the Spanish to sell it to the U.S. Slaves could also escape north along the Underground Railway into free states and Canada until the Civil War. However, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1851 and the Dred Scott decision handed down by the Supreme Court in 1857 made escape to the North problematic. Even longtime abolitionist Frederick Douglas, himself an escaped slave, went on a speaking tour of Europe during this time period to avoid being re-enslaved. Although tens of thousands of slaves made their way north, escapees were still a small percentage of the overall slave population in any given year.

So it may be semantic, but I question if "many" slaves, at least in relation to the total slave population in the United States, were freed during the time period

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Slaves fought for American independence and many thereby gained their freedom. Yet far more slaves obtained liberty from the British. Nearly 100,000 slaves, including one-quarter of all slaves in South Carolina and one-third of those in Georgia, deserted their owners and fled to British lines. Gradual as it was, the abolition of slavery in the North drew a line across the new nation, creating the dangerous division between free and salve states. On the eve of independence, virtually every black person in America had been a slave. Now, free communities, with their own churches, schools, and leaders, came into existence. They formed a standing challenge to the logic of slavery, a haven for…

    • 1055 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although two-thirds of Southerners had no slaves, the institution of slavery was intertwined with the region’s economy and culture. The Virginians owned the most slaves out of any state, with a total of 490,865 slaves. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was one of the major events or legislation that increased tensions between the North and the South in the years leading to the Civil War. Congress passed this act in 1793 to add on to an earlier federal law that permitted local governments to capture runaway slaves, return them to their owners, and punish anyone who assisted the fugitives in escaping. The Compromise of 1850 included a revised version of this that was far more severe.…

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the United States, racism had been for several hundred years; it’s aslo been a controversial subject for people for a long period of time. Whenever we talk about this subject, it always reminds me about the book called “Race and Manifest Destiny” by Reginald Horsman. This book is one of the greatest books about the racism in the United States from 1776 to 1865. During the early years of America’s history, society was categorized by class rather than skin color. In the early of colonial period, black and white workers who worked together everywhere. However, the crisis of the Norh American owners in the early of sixteenth century has changed the system. Black enslavement had become necessary for the American agricultural economy. There is the first formed an equal human being between blacks and whites. From the beginning of the United State nation to 1865, there was always a distance which separated the White people and Black people or Indian people due to the racial discrimination in the society at that time.…

    • 1285 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the 1800s slavery was established. Slavery was common in the south, however slavery was abolished in several areas such as the North for example. Several African Americans for instance Harriet Tubman, she tried to escape from the South and tried entering the North for freedom and the pursuit of happiness. However this wasn’t any different from the South . Although slavery was abolished in the North, African Americans still had certain restrictions, therefore they were still slaves.…

    • 759 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Constitution has an article that says that fugitives from industry must be sent back to the South if they were caught in the North. Also, this gave slavery what people like to call more territory. That meant that it made slavery a global organization. Although the northern states did have the ability to abolish slavery, they could not pass up their own Constitutional priority to enforce the slave laws that were in the southern states. Some fugitives even carried with them the officially authorized status of slavery, even in a territory that didn’t have any slavery at all. In reality, most of the states did not do much about this. That is the reason the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was enacted, which made the federal government responsible for tracking down and apprehending fugitive slaves in the North, and sending them back to the South. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, one might say, was the most powerful exercise of federal authority within the United States in the whole era before the Civil…

    • 1367 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One of the steps to removing slavery was when the people wanted to free the slaves and send them back to Africa. It didn't work because the citizens that have slaves didn't want to get rid of them because they just spent all their money on them and don't want to give them right back. Some slaves still ended up getting freed and went up north because all of the free states were…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the American Revolution the states were divided into two categories, states that allowed slavery and states that didn’t. Abe Lincoln released his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which only freed slaves in the confederate states. Many citizens thought the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves, but it didn't. All slaves didn’t have freedom until the 13th amendment was set in stone.…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    New attitudes were seen towards the topic of slavery because of the Revolutionary War, especially in the North. It inspired a spirit of liberty and an appreciation of the work of the work of all black soldiers (slaves). Some of the Northern legislatures adopted laws during the late 1700s that provided for the end of slavery immediately or gradually. The census of 1790 revealed that the nation had about 59,000 free blacks and this included 27,000 from the North. After the Revolutionary War, a lot of the free blacks were able to find jobs at the tobacco plants, the textile mills, and other factories. Some found even better jobs, some became editors and others became merchants. One of the best editors were Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, who…

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The only slaves that were eligible for freedom under the proclamation were slaves who were enslaved in states that had seceded from the nation. To be specific slaves from these states were now free “Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth.” However, slaves in northern states or states that were Southern but had not seceded were not free. They would not gain their freedom until the 13th amendment was passed by congress in January of…

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Post Civil War

    • 1163 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The thing that got the slave free was the Emancipation Proclamation. This was created by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It didn’t fully free all slaves until around December 1865 (newworldencyclopedia.org). “This act is largely ignored in the south, particularly after 1877 when the last federal troops of the military occupation are withdrawn. The experiment in radical reconstruction is over. Democrats regain control of every southern state government. Far from the Republicans, establishing a strong presence in the region, the south becomes an area of one-party politics until the second half of the 20th century” (historyworld.net).…

    • 1163 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Based on the evidence, it is clear that the slavery system should be abolished across all fronts while creating a support system for the freed slaves. Slavery in the Antebellum Americas was a forced system of labor that began roughly in the 1610s and was abolished by Congress in 1865. Slavery began when added labor was needed within the colonies and soon the practice skyrocketed as more slaves were stolen from their homelands during the Middle Passage, which was a significant part of the slave trade where African slaves were stolen and densely packed onto ships to sail across the Atlantic. As slavery boomed according to consumer needs, slave rebellions become prominent as hundreds fought for their freedom. This horrible institution has stolen…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Americans were forced to work in even harsher conditions as inmates because the owners of their lease had no incentives to protect their lives. Slavery continued in the south disguised as convict leasing. The debate of our judicial system is deeply embedded in the creation of utilizing convict labor as a system targeted at black men and women designed to criminalize them as a race.…

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery has had a place in human civilization for a substantial part of our history. Long before it was associated with the capture and enslavement of Africans, it was widely used amongst many cultures following tribal warfare and conquests. Primarily in Europe, slavery was used to repay debts. Additionally there was no racial segregation in slavery. It wasn’t until the introduction of African slaves to the Americas in 1619 that slaves were predominantly black.…

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery was an important and crucial development to the United States and Texas. This allowed their economies to grow and fuel the development of these states. However, as states started to join the union, slavery started to decline in the northern United States and increase in the Lower United State including Texas.…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    - Slaves in 17th century - Slavery in the United State started in 1619. This was when African slaves were brought to Jamestown, VA. These people were not free at all. They were forced to harvest cash crops like cotton and tobacco. Slaves during this time had the least amount of freedom among the other members of this group. During and right after the Revolution, many people called for the end of slavery since they saw it as similar to the colonies' relationship with England. However, slaves were not freed until after the Civil War and slavery was further reinforced with the 3/5 compromise in the constitution. So that calculated slaves as 3/5 of a person for purposes of representation in Congress. American revolution freed slaves, but it took a whole hundred years until they could vote.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays