Slavery - History



Slavery & Beyond | | |

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|Slavery is the condition in which one human being is owned by another. A slave was considered by law as property (chattel) |

|and was deprived of many of the rights ordinarily held by free persons. |

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|Slaves were objects of the law, not its subjects, like an ox or an axe. As a “marginal individual” or “socially dead person”|

|the slave’s rights to participate in political decision making and other social activities were fewer than those enjoyed by |

|his owner. The product of a slave's labour could be claimed by someone else, who also frequently had the right to control |

|slaves’ reproduction. |

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|Slaves had been owned in Africa throughout recorded history. In the second half of the C15th Europeans began to trade along|

|the west coast of Africa, and by 1867 7 million - 10 million Africans had been shipped as slaves to the New World. |

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|Slaves were first brought to Virginia in 1619. Tobacco was initially the profitable crop that occupied most slaves in the |

|Chesapeake, however, the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 changed this, and thereafter cotton created a huge demand for |

|slaves. By 1850 nearly two-thirds of plantation slaves were engaged in the production of cotton. |

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|More than 36% of all the New World slaves in 1825 were in the southern United States. Like Rome had been in the Ancient |

|World, the South was totally transformed by the presence of slavery. |

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|The process of becoming a slave in America was brutal. Africans were captured by other Africans in raids and then |

|transported to the African coast. The captives, primarily adult males, were assembled on the coast and kept in holding pens |

|until wholesaled to European ship captains. Once a ship was loaded, the trip, known as “the Middle Passage,” usually to |

|Brazil or an island in the Caribbean, was a matter of a few weeks to several months. The slaves were then sold at auction. |

|After the auction the slave was delivered to the new owner, who then put him to work. That also began the period of |

|“seasoning” for the slave, the period of about a year or so when he either succumbed to the disease environment of the New |

|World or survived it. |

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|In 1807 the British abolished the slave trade with their colonies. In America, the anti-slavery movement created immense |

|hostility between the non-slave North, where most states had voluntarily abolished slavery by 1804, and the slaveholding |

|South, where slavery was firmly entrenched because of the spread of cotton cultivation. However, it took the South's |

|secession, the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 to end slavery in America. |

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|Throughout history slaves have often been considered to be stupid, uneducable, childlike, lazy, untruthful, untrustworthy, |

|prone to drunkenness, idle, boorish, lascivious, licentious, and cowardly. A major issue in the topic of attitudes toward |

|slavery is that of race. In the South the owners were of northern European stock and the slaves of African stock. The degree|

|of social isolation of, and dehumanising contempt for, slaves was extraordinary. Southern slaves were forbidden to engage in|

|occupations that might demonstrate their capacities, inter-marriage almost never occurred, and “manumission” (the freeing of|

|a slave) was almost unheard of, as the owners proclaimed that Blacks lacked any capacity to maintain themselves as free |

|individuals. |

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|The institution of slavery usually tried to deny its victims their native cultural identity. Nonetheless, studies have shown|

|that there were aspects of slave culture that differed from the master culture. Afro-Christian religions and rituals |

|appeared nearly everywhere throughout the New World. Afro-American music and dance are known to have African roots, and they|

|differed dramatically from the practices of the European master culture; the use of drum and banjo were especially |

|significant. Songs and spirituals borrowed their strong call-and-response patterns from the West African style. |

|The American Civil War | |

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|The American Civil War was a four-year conflict (1861–65) between the federal government of the United States and 11 |

|Southern states that asserted their right to secede from the Union (leave the union of the United States). |

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|The secession of the Southern states (in chronological order, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, |

|Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina) in 1860–61 and the outbreak of the Civil War were the |

|result of decades of tension over the issue of slavery. This tension was caused by fundamental differences between the |

|economies of the Northern and Southern states. The North had a growing manufacturing sector and small farms using free |

|labour, while the South's economy was based on plantations using slave labour. By the 1850s, some Northerners had begun |

|calling for the complete abolition of slavery, while several Southern states threatened to secede from the Union in order to|

|protect their right to keep slaves. When Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party, was elected |

|president in 1860, the Southern states carried out their threat and seceded from the Union. |

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|The seceded Southern States organized themselves as the Confederate States of America under President Jefferson Davis. They |

|aimed to win a short war of independence. The Northern states of the federal Union, under President Abraham Lincoln, |

|commanded more than twice the population of the Confederacy. War began in Charleston, South Carolina, with the firing of |

|Confederate artillery on Fort Sumter on April 12 1861. The famous Ulysses S. Grant and General E. Lee played important roles|

|in commanding the Union and Confederate forces respectively. |

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|During the period of the war, many slaves fled from the South along the Underground Railroad to the North and to freedom. |

|Many freed slaves also joined the ranks of the Union Army. |

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|The North's victory in the American Civil War resulted in the preservation of the Union, the abolition of slavery and the |

|granting of citizenship to the freed slaves. The war also marked the new economic and political superiority of the rapidly |

|industrializing, increasingly urbanized states of the North. |

|Reconstruction | |

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|Reconstruction (1865 – 1877) was the period during and after the American Civil War when attempts were made to solve the |

|political, social and economic problems which had been caused by the readmission to the Union of the 11 Confederate states |

|that had seceded. |

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|As early as 1862 President Abraham Lincoln had appointed provisional military governors for Louisiana, Tennessee and North |

|Carolina. The following year, steps were taken to re-establish governments in newly occupied states in which at least 10% of|

|the voting population had taken the prescribed oath of allegiance. However, Radical Republicans in Congress were angry that |

|the presidential plan did not consider social or economic reconstruction. |

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|After Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, President Andrew Johnson further alienated Congress by continuing Lincoln's |

|moderate policies. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which defined national citizenship so that it included |

|blacks, passed Congress in June 1866 despite rejection by most Southern states. |

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|The period known as Radical Reconstruction lasted ten years. It started with the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. Under these |

|laws, the 10 remaining Southern states were divided into five military districts and, under supervision of the U.S. Army, |

|were readmitted to the Union between 1868 and 1870. Each state had to accept the Fourteenth or, if readmitted after its |

|passage, the Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment, intended to ensure civil rights of the freed Blacks. Newly created state |

|governments were governed by political coalitions (groups) of blacks, “carpetbaggers” (anti-slavery Northerners who had gone|

|into the South), and “scalawags” (anti-slavery Southerners who collaborated with the blacks). |

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|Southerners particularly resented the activities of the Freedmen's Bureau, which Congress had established to feed, protect |

|and help educate the newly freed Blacks. Resentment over issues such as the Freedmen’s Bureau led to formation of secret |

|terrorist organizations e.g. the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camelia. |

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|At the turn of the C20th, many historians argued that Blacks were racially inferior. These “orthodox” historians also argued|

|that the Reconstruction governments were corrupt, vindictive against the South and that they promoted the superiority of the|

|North. |

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|However, “revisionist” historians since then have different opinions. These revisionist historians argue that the |

|Reconstruction governments introduced many positive measures in the South, such as public school systems, feasible methods |

|of taxation and improved judicial procedures. |

|The Great Migration | |

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|The Great Migration was the movement of thousands of African-Americans from the South to the North. African Americans were |

|looking to escape the problems of racism in the South and felt they could seek out better jobs and an overall better life in|

|the North. It is estimated that over 1 million African-Americans participated in this mass movement. |

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|In 1900 approximately 90% of all African-Americans still resided in the South. The Great Migration created the first large, |

|urban black communities in the North. The North saw its black population rise about 20% between 1910 and 1930. Cities such |

|as Chicago, Detroit, New York and Cleveland saw some of the biggest increases. Between 1940 and 1970 continued migration |

|transformed the country's African-American population from a predominately southern, rural group to a northern, urban one. |

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|There were a range of reasons why so many Blacks moved from the South to the North. Thousands of African-Americans left the |

|South to escape worsening economic conditions and the lynch mob. They sought higher wages, better homes and political rights|

|in the North. World War I created a huge demand for labour in the North when millions of men left their jobs to join the |

|Army. There were therefore more jobs available for Blacks in the North. In the South, a boll weevil infestation of the |

|cotton crop which caused ruined harvests also caused many African-Americans to leave for the North. Railroad companies were |

|so desperate for labour that they paid African-Americans' travel expenses to the North. |

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|With black labour leaving the South in large numbers, southern planters tried to prevent the outflow, but were ultimately |

|unsuccessful. Some southern employers promised better pay and improved treatment. Others tried to intimidate Blacks, even |

|going so far as to board Northbound trains and to attack men and women to try to force them into returning to the South. |

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|Despite the jobs and housing available in the North, the challenges of living in an urban environment were daunting for many|

|of the new migrants. However, the stream of migrants continued until the Great Depression caused northern demand for workers|

|to slacken. |

|The Harlem Renaissance | |

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|The Harlem Renaissance was a period of outstanding literary vigour and creativity that took place in the 1920s, changing the|

|character of African-American literature to sophisticated explorations of black life and culture that revealed a new |

|confidence and racial pride. |

|The movement was centred in the vast black ghetto of Harlem in New York City, where aspiring black artists, writers and |

|musicians gathered. These artists shared their experiences and provided mutual encouragement. |

|One of the leading figures of the period was James Weldon Johnson, author of the pioneering novel “Autobiography Of An |

|Ex-Coloured Man” (1912), though he was perhaps best known for “God's Trombones” (1927). Claude McKay produced an impressive |

|volume of verse, “Harlem Shadows” (1922), and a best-selling novel, “Home to Harlem” (1928), about a young Negro's return |

|from World War I. Countee Cullen was another important black poet. Cullen helped bring more Harlem poets to the public’s |

|attention by editing “An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets” in 1927. |

|The Great Depression caused the Harlem group of writers to scatter. Many were forced to leave New York or to take other jobs|

|to tide them over the hard times. |

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