Slavery is a system of forced labor that has existed throughout the world for thousands of years. In America, slavery began in the 17th century when people in Africa were overpowered and... forced to leave their native land, their culture, and their families behind. Europeans and others did not simply march into Africa and just take people off. I mean, there were battles, there were wars that were lost.
by the British, by the French, by the Portuguese, as well as those which were won. You had males and females leading forces against the enslavers. Europeans responded by coercing one tribe to enslave another, threatening to arm their enemies with terrifying new weapons if they did not cooperate.
These tribal slave traders selected strong, healthy males and females between the ages of 18 and 30. and 35 although children were often captured as well. The African captives were chained together at the ankle or wrist or linked at the neck by wooden yoke. Once bound the captives embarked on a grueling march sometimes as long as 600 miles to the coast where European ships awaited them.
Many perished from the rigors of the trip. Others resisted their captors and were killed. The Atlantic crossing took from four to eight weeks.
Men, women and children were crowded into tightly packed quarters. The ordeal was so demoralizing that the Africans often sank into a deep depression. Some chose death rather than to endure the degradation. They attempted to escape on ships by simply, if the opportunity offered itself, by leaping off and drowning or whatever. Once they were bound by the continental United States, the protests took the form more of insurrection.
The first slaves in the American colonies, a cargo of about 20 Africans, arrived at Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The number of enslaved Africans increased steadily each year. By 1763, the colonial population included an estimated 230,000 Africans, most of them slaves in the South. A slave was someone who could be forced to work from the age of 8, 6, 4 even, long hours at tasks that someone else decided.. A slave was a person who had no right to a vacation.
A slave was a person who had no rights to wages. A slave could have no property. A slave could not marry.
By the late 18th century, the textile industry had entered a period of rapid development in both England and in the northern United States. This growth created a tremendous demand for southern cotton. In 1789, the French were forced to leave the country. In 1893, Eli Whitney developed the cotton gin, a machine that cleaned cotton five times faster than manual methods.
As a result, more slaves were needed to pick and haul the cotton. there would be four million African slaves in the United States. This enormous population of slaves was owned by a small group of the wealthiest and most powerful whites in American society.
As African slaves toiled in the fields, laws were created to enforce their low status. They were prohibited from participating in lawsuits, from owning property or firearms, and from possessing alcohol. Most states did not recognize slave marriages and often prohibited slaves from learning to read and write.
The treatment slaves received from their masters varied tremendously. Some owners were brutal sadists who worked their slaves mercilessly and threatened them with corporal discipline so painful that it amounted to torture. And if you were ordered to do a task that you knew would be dangerous to you, you had to do it.
So, even though it's tempting to put poverty and slavery together, they were very different. And the difference is that enslaved workers had no rights. A slave had no protection from this mistreatment, because the law considered a slave another man's property, not a human being.
When a slave suffered a whipping, he could neither fight back nor take his master to court. Slaves developed an independent culture unknown to their masters. They spun fantastic spoken narratives that passed from one generation to the next. These folk tales express the enslaved Africans'aspirations for a better life. Many slaves found strength to endure oppression through their religion, which blended Christianity with African beliefs.
Spirituality was a strong force in the life of the slave. Slaves could turn to God with all of their problems. Slaves could ask God to either relieve them of the burden of a brutal slave master or to free them from the day-to-day struggle in their lives. At the core of slave society was the family.
Slave families suffered when one member was sold to another plantation. Owners usually kept women and children together, selling off the father and sons. On the well-established plantations, black families had a better chance of remaining intact, some enduring for three or four generations. Although religion, folk tales, and family life softened the horrors of slavery, they did not lessen the humiliating aspects of servitude. Slaves sought more direct means of resisting their bondage.
through violent rebellion, are subtle and covert acts of resistance. You found people who were enslaved that resisted by working very slowly, pretending that they didn't know how to do something, accidentally breaking equipment, just slowing down the process, not happily go lucky going along with everything. These were all forms of resistance.
Wherever there were Africans in the Western Hemisphere, there were slave revolts. Haiti's Toussaint Louverture helped rid the island of European domination by organizing his people into a standing army of several thousand troops. The best known slave revolt in U.S. history occurred in 1831 in Southampton, Virginia. It was led by a plantation headman named Nat Turner, who rose up in revolt with other slaves and killed the plantation owner and his family.
The rampage was halted when local militia crushed the rebellion, capturing and executing Turner. Many men and women known as abolitionists worked unceasingly to end slavery. They viewed slavery as immoral and unchristian and could not comprehend how Americans steeped in the tenets of the...
Declaration of Independence could sanction the enslavement of human beings. Many former slaves like Sojourner Truth supported the abolitionist movement. She traveled widely speaking for both racial and and gender causes.
Sojourner Truth, using her very strong religious beliefs, felt this need, this urge to travel the country, delivering her message of upliftment for black people, and ultimately did become someone who was involved in many other activities, including the abolitionist movement, including the women's movement. The abolitionist movement attracted members of both races, including the prominent journalist William Lloyd Garris. who published the Liberator, the leading anti-slavery newspaper of the day. Frederick Douglass, another towering figure in the anti-slavery movement, was born a Maryland slave in about 1817. Escaping to the North, he became an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and a tireless orator for black freedom.
In 1847, Douglass founded an abolitionist newspaper, The North Star. He was politically active and simply involved in every aspect of life that he could in an attempt to improve the status of black Americans in the 19th century. There are certainly individuals in the 20th century, such as Martin Luther King, who've had a similar impact as Frederick Douglass did in his time. So I would say to a high school student who is more likely to know of Martin Luther King in our modern time, that he should be aware of Frederick Douglass as the equivalent of a Martin Luther King in the 19th century. On plantations, slaves performed numerous jobs and were placed in hierarchical ranks.
Field slaves were usually divided into gangs of five to ten and supervised by a slave driver, often a slave himself. Many slaves escaped to freedom along a series of trails known as the Underground Railroad. The railroad was a loose network of people willing to hide runaway slaves in their homes and conduct them to the next station, or safe house, until they could reach the free north. The Underground Railroad was also aided by northern abolitionist organizations, such as the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, who gave supplies and helped conduct slaves to freedom. The Philadelphia Vigilance Committee was a very important group engaged in aiding fugitive slaves.
It was a group that had operated from the late 1830s into the early 1840s, and it was comprised of fugitives as well as free blacks and white supporters. It was a group that aided the Underground Railroad and their primary job was to aid fugitives with food and clothing and money and to direct them on to other places. Pursued by angry slave masters and bounty hunters, the route for escaped slaves was perilous and hard.
Many did not survive the hardship or were caught and returned to their masters. The most famous guide on the Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman. Having escaped from a Maryland plantation in 1849, she became familiar with the roads, hiding places and depots that were used to conduct runaways to freedom in the North.
Harriet Tubman was a brave, courageous, wise, and kind person. Not only did she concern herself about her liberty, but she concerned herself about people of all races. As you know, one reason why the Underground Railroad was so popular among people throughout the world is that people of all races, creeds, and colors came together.
Tubman's method relied on secrecy and surprise. She would gather money and supplies in the north, then slip down to the eastern shore through Delaware and into Maryland, arriving unannounced until the last moment. She would make contact with the slaves who were ready to escape.
She would simply appear on the eastern shore, and the word would be quickly spread to all of those who were determined that they would be. be free, where they should meet her at the appointed hour. And of course, those who chose freedom met her there and embarked with her on the trek to freedom.
After she learned from her first venture that she could not trust slaves to determine that they were going to drop out, she packed a revolver, and for those who determined that they were going to turn around, She told them go forward or die. To avoid suspicion, Tubman sang traditional slave spirituals to relay coded messages to slaves. She stole away into the night and crept along the very slave quarters or cabins, oftentimes whispering or knocking on doors, more or less singing.
Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus. I ain't got long to stay here with a coded spiritual informing the slaves to steal away. Having gathered her flock, Tubman would travel at night and conduct them to Delaware, Pennsylvania.
She used only the most trusted contacts and safe houses along the route of the Underground Railroad. One such key station on the Underground Railroad was Johnson House in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Owned by Quakers, Johnson House was a safe haven for exhausted runaway slaves. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act intensified the risk for runaway slaves. Under federal law, any Negro accused of being a runaway could be returned to slavery by the sworn statement of the slave's owner.
Northern states that had been safe for fugitive slaves became dangerous as runaway slaves were hunted for reward. To be safe, Tubman extended her Underground Railroad Trail to St. Catharines, Canada, a town near Niagara Falls. Walk together children, walk together children, don't become weary.
We're going to make it to the promised land. I have shoes, you have shoes, all God's children have shoes. When you get to heaven, going to put on their shoes and walk all over God's heaven. Heaven was a code word for Canada. During her trips to the south, Harriet Tubman became known as the as the Moses of her people, referring to the biblical Moses who delivered his people from Egyptian bondage.
She successfully conducted over 600 slaves to freedom, including her own family. And freedom is a word that has tremendous resonance, particularly for black Americans, but also for Americans in general, because slavery stands right behind it, and we know so much about what slavery meant. Slavery was a terrible condition that no one wanted to embrace or to be part of. So freedom is glorious because it's the denial, it's the triumph over slavery. In 1857 the growing abolitionist movement suffered a setback when the United States Supreme Court handed down a controversial decision in the case of Dred Scott versus Sanford.
Dred Scott, a black slave, brought suit against his owner on the grounds that he had legally become emancipated while traveling through the free-soil state of Illinois. The Supreme Court ruled against Scott, declaring that as a black man he was not a United States citizen and thus had no right to bring a suit in a federal court. More importantly, the court ruled that a slave did not automatically gain his liberty by entering a free state. The legal system was available to African Americans to a certain extent, which means that they could pursue their grievances through the courts, but it did not mean necessarily that the courts would be sympathetic to their interests or that fairness would be the issue. Two years after the Dred Scott case, an abolitionist named John Brown organized a plot to free southern slaves through armed intervention.
In order to secure sufficient weaponry, he led a raiding party of 13 whites and 5 blacks into the federal arsenal. at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. John Brown contacted Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass and involved them in his Harpers Ferry plan to attack. the slave-owning South and to liberate the slaves.
Harriet Tubman was committed to join Brown. Frederick Douglass, however, studied the plan and determined that it would fail and decided that he would not be a part. Harriet Tubman would have been with John Brown at Harper's Ferry had she not become ill at the time the courts would be sympathetic. to their interests or that fairness would be the issue.
Two years after the Dred Scott case, an abolitionist named John Brown organized a plot to free southern slaves through armed intervention. In order to secure sufficient weaponry, He led a raiding party of 13 whites and five blacks into the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. John Brown contacted Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass and...
involved them in his Harper's Ferry plan to attack the slave-owning South and to liberate the slaves. Harriet Tubman was committed to join Brown. Frederick Douglass, however, studied the plan and determined that it would fail and decided that he would not be a part.
Harriet Tubman would have been with John Brown at Hobbs. this fairy Had she not become ill at the time. Brown wrested control of the armory, killed the town's mayor, and seized several hostages before he was captured by federal authorities and hanged two months later.
In 1860... Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States. He opposed the expansion of slavery and his victory threw the South into revolt. By March of 1861, seven states, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, had seceded from the Union to form a coalition they called the Confederate States of America.
The Civil War began one month later when Confederate gunfire sounded over the federal stronghold of Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by issuing a call for 75,000 people to be sent to the city. volunteers to man the Union Army. Some historians argue that economic issues were of utmost importance in the causing of the war.
Many historians though, have come to the conclusion in recent years that slavery was the key issue which caused the Civil War. At the heart of the Civil War was the issue of whether or not the slave states were going to be able to maintain their status. The abolitionists presented the president with two demands. The right of freed blacks to fight with the Union Army and the emancipation of the slaves. The abolitionists were the men and women, black and white, that wanted to abolish or to end slavery.
Many of the abolitionists were in the North and they fought for many years to change the system that the country had accepted. I'd like to add also that for women abolitionists, speaking in public was tremendously courageous. That The early 19th century was a time in which women did not generally speak in public.
It was not considered the thing to do for respectable women. Eventually, Lincoln acceded to both demands. Nearly 185,000 blacks fought valiantly during the Civil War, and about 38,000 of them gave their lives to the Union's cause. In December 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery. The war's end in April 1865 brought freedom to nearly four million slaves.
Freedmen, as both males and females were called, celebrated throughout the South on plantations or at crossroads between them. By word of mouth, news of the Emancipation Proclamation spread. I believe like wildfire throughout the Confederacy, the ability of African Americans to transmit messages before the Civil War, during the Civil War is legendary and this was another example of that legendary ability to communicate. In December 1865, Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Guaranteeing the hard-won freedom of African slaves.
It stated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States. Emancipation throughout the South was followed by a period of intense confusion in which blacks made the dramatic transition from slavery to citizenship. At first, a number of slaves decided to walk about, as the expression was in that time, to test freedom, to see what it really meant. But they soon discovered that life meant more than just having simple freedom without economic support.
And so many were forced to go back to the old plantations and to contract with their owners for work. In 1867, Congress fed up with the pussyfooting of the president, who was then Andrew Johnson. A slaveholder from Tennessee and a man who had been Lincoln's vice president and who ascended to the office with the assassination of President Lincoln passed.
The first Reconstruction Act in March of that year, and that placed the 10 of the 11 states of the Confederacy, the Fighting South, under military rule in five districts, and annulled the governments of those states. This Reconstruction ushered in an era of reform. but did not alter the economic disparity between the former slaves and their masters.
The South complied with the dictates of reconstruction only because the military now occupied their territory enforcing the new laws. As part of this revolutionary pattern in the South, Congress extended the right to vote to all free men. Thus granting formerly unheard of power to the blacks.
This new block of black voters, without a corresponding economic foundation, only increased the ability of the Republican Party to maintain temporary control of the re-United States. After the Reconstruction, government failed and the northern soldiers were pulled out of the South. Violence increased in the South.
Groups like the Ku Klux Klan were attempting to take away the rights that had been used by the people. gained by African Americans. One of the things that I think young people today should be aware of is the range of extremely important contributions that African Americans have made to American society over the years and that they've been able to make these contributions in the face of overwhelming odds.
They have fought for rights which had been denied them and which we now have available to us and which quite often, quite frequently, we abuse, we don't take full advantage of. advantage of. The Civil War destroyed the institution of slavery, but it did not end the racism of white southerners who wanted their former slaves to retain their inferior status. Discrimination against Americans of African descent would continue.
Like Tubman and Douglass before them, new leaders would be called forward by African Americans to guard their fight for freedom. oh