Gaby Torres
Group 2
English 2A
Main Idea

“It would take either a full-scale slave
rebellion or a full-scale war to end such
a deeply entrenched system.”

Basically this statement is saying that in
order for slavery to come to an end,
something which may have a big impact
on the United States would have to
occur in order for a change in slavery to
come about.
Different Aspects of Slavery

Zinn tells of how many slaves and free
blacks attempted to abolish slavery.
Many of the incidents which occurred
were of slaves uniting and rebelling
against slave owners and masters alike.
Many died to hands of whites for their
participation in these rebellions.
Abolishing Slavery
Whites of the Southern States
They tried hard to keep slavery the way
it was. With the steady growing number
of free educated blacks in the Northern
states grew the desire for slaves to
obtain the same.
 In the North, blacks were able to obtain
an education and work as well as own
their own stores.

Comparative Area of the Free and
Slave States
Abraham Lincoln


He got into office and many Southern Whites
believed he sided on the abolishment of
slavery so they made their states separate
from the Northern portion of the United States.
He supported the Union, which were the
Northern States which held free blacks, and
gave the Confederate States an ultimatum to
join back with the Union or war will begin.
Thus, the Civil War begun and it was during
this time which Lincoln issued the
Emancipation of Proclamation and freed the
slaves in the United States.
Abraham Lincoln
Confiscation Act
Passed in July of 1862 by Congress.
It enabled the freeing of slaves of those fighting in
the Union. This is stating that any black that fought
with the Union became a free man.
 Used as a way to recruit more blacks to fight and
help win the war.
 That April, the Senate had adopted the Thirteenth
Amendment, declaring an end to slavery. In
January 1865 the House of Representatives
followed. This means slavery came to end.
 Although, the battle was over blacks still were not
treated equal to their white counterparts. Many
laws offering equality to everyone despite color
were made then taken away.


Describing Slavery
1932 edition of a best-selling textbook”necessary transition to civilization”
 A record of deaths kept in a plantation journal
lists the age and cause of death of all those who
died on the plantation between 1850 and 1855.
 Time on the Cross- shows that over the course
of 2 years, a total of 160 whippings were
administered, an avg. of 0.7 whippings per hand
per year.
 The whippings and punishments were work
disciplines.

Time on the Cross
Slavery book that looks at whippings
in 1840-1842 on the Barrow
Plantation in Louisiana with 200
slaves.
Largest Slave Revolt in U.S.
Took place near New Orleans in 1811
 400-500 slaves gathered after a rising at the
plantation of a Major Andry.
 Armed with cane knives, axes, and clubs, they
wounded Andry, killed his son, and began
marching from plantation to plantation, their
numbers growing.
 Were attacked by U.S Army and militia forces;
66 killed on spot; 16 were tried and shot by a
firing squad

Nat Turners Rebellion
In Southampton County, Virginia in the
summer of 1831.
 He claimed religious visions, gathered
about 70 slaves and they went on a
rampage from plantation to plantation,
murdering at least 55 men, women, and
children.
 Gathered supporters, but were captured
as their ammunition ran out.
 Turner and 18 others were hanged

Nat Turner Revolt and Capture
Running Away
Much more realistic than armed
insurrection.
 During the 1850s about a thousand
slaves a year escaped into the North,
Canada, and Mexico. Thousands ran
away for short periods
 Dogs used in tracking fugitives “bit, tore,
mutilated, and if not pulled off in time,
killed their prey.”

Harriet Tubman
Born into slavery
 Made her way to freedom alone
 Became the most famous conductor on
the Underground Railroad
 Made 19 dangerous trips back and forth,
escorting more than 300 slaves to
freedom
 Always carried a gun and told the
fugitives, “You’ll be free or die”

Harriet Tubman

Her philosophy:
“There was one of two
things to has a right
to, liberty or death; if I
could not have one, I
would have the other;
for no man should
take me alive…”
Religion used for Control

Cotton Plantation Record and
Account Book- planters
consulted this book which gave
these instructions: “You will find
that an hour devoted every
Sabbath morning to their moral
and religious instruction would
prove a great aid to you in
bringing about a better state of
things amongst the Negroes.”
Resistance of Slaves
The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom
show the stubborn resistance of slave
families to lose unity.
 Slaves resisted to forced marriages, slaves
remained loyal to their partner, and had
stable family groups.

David Walker
Son of a slave but born free in North Carolina
 Wrote and printed a pamphlet- Walker’s Appeal. Infuriated southern slaveholders.
 Georgia offered $10,000 to who could deliver him
alive and $1,000 to who could kill him.


With no slavery EVER in history, even that of the
Israelites in Egypt, “…show me a page of history, on
which a verse can be found, which maintains, that
the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon
the children of Israel, by telling them that they wre
ont of the human family.”
David Walker

Blacks must fight
for their freedom
he said.

1830-found dead
near doorway of
his shop in Boston
Fugitive Slave Act
Passed in 1850
 Was a concession to the southern
states in return for the admission of
the Mexican war territories in to the
Union as non-slave states.
 Made it easy for slaveowners to
recapture ex-slaves of pick up blacks
they claimed had run away
 Northern blacks organized resistance
to this act

No Sign of Rebellion
10 years after Nat Turner’s rebellion, there
was no sign of insurrection.
 1841 however, slaves being transported
on the Creole ship overpowered the crew,
killed one of them, and sailed into British
West Indies (slavery abolished there).
 England refused to return slaves and this
led to angry talk in Congress of war with
England.

Differences between Black &
White Abolitionists

Blacks:
 willing to engage in armed rebellion, but also more ready






to use political devices
Less publicized
Were the backbone of the antislavery movement
Before 1831, the 1st natl. convention of Negroes had been
held, David Walker already wrote his “Appeal,” and a
black abolitionist magazine had appeared.
Of The Liberator’s first 25 subscribers, most were black.
Had to struggle with racism from white abolitionists and
had to insist on their own independent voice
Douglas started his own newspaper, North Star.
Differences between Black &
White Abolitionists

Whites:
 Did courageous and pioneering work
 Appeared on the lecture platform, in
newspapers, and in the Underground
railroad
 Garrison- editor of The Liberator- published
in 1831.
 More morally absolute than the blacks
John Brown
Wanted to seize the federal arsenal
at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and then
set off a revolt of slaves through the
South.
 Harriet Tubman was involved but
sickness prevented her from joining
him. Frederick Douglass was in also
and although he believed they’d fail,
he admired Brown.
 Douglass was correct, the plan did
not work

John Brown captured



Local militia, 100 marines under command of
Robert E. Lee surrounded them. With Brown’s
men dead or captured, he refused to
surrender. He was wounded and sick and he
got interrogated by governor of Virginia.
Before Brown was hung, “I, John Brown, am
quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land
will never be purged away but with blood.”
He was executed by the state of Virginia with
the approval of the national government
National Government
In Andrew Jackson’s administration, would
never accept an end to slavery by
rebellion. Would end only under conditions
controlled by whites and only when
required by the political and economic
needs of the business elite in the North.
 Supreme Court of U.S. declared in 1857,
Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom
because he was property, not a person.

Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
March 1861. Was peacemaking toward the
South and the seceded states. And with the
war 4 months on, when General John C.
Fremont declared martial law and said slaves
of owners resisting the U.S. were to be free,
Lincoln canceled this order.
 Once the war grew more bitter, causalities
increased, desperation to win heightened, and
the criticism of abolitionists threatened to
unravel the coalition behind Lincoln, he began
to act against slavery.

Lincoln Abolishing Slavery
His choice to abolish slavery was not one made
with slaves or rather African Americans in mind
instead it was to benefit himself and his position.
Lincoln’s reply to Horace Greenley, editor of New
York Tribune, was one which showed his disinterest
in slavery.
 Lincoln stated, “My paramount object in this
struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to
save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union
without freeing any slaves, I would do it; and if I
could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do
it….” It was later said that if slaves were not freed,
the Union would’ve more than likely lost the war.

Emancipation Proclamation
Issued Jan. 1, 1863, it declared
slaves free in those areas still
fighting against the Union.
 It spurred antislavery forces. By
1864, 400,000 signatures
asking legislation to end slavery
had been sent to Congress.
 Union army was open to blacks

Black Women in the War
Sojourner Truth-became recruiter
of black troops for the Union army.
 Harriet Tubman- raided
plantations, leading black and
white troops, and in one
expedition freed 750 slaves.
 Women helped their husbands,
endured terrible hardships on the
military treks, where many children
died and suffered the fate of
soldiers

Negro Soldier Law
After William Walker’s protest to unequal
pay, finally in June 1864, Congress
passed a law granting equal pay to
Negro soldiers
 This law authorized enlistment of slaves
as soldiers, to be freed by consent of
their owners and their state
governments.- but before it had any
significant effect, the was over.

Period after the Civil War
Southern negroes voted, blacks elected to
state legislatures to Congress, introduced free
and racially mixed public education to South.
 14th amendment renounced the Dred Scott
decision
 Congress passed al number of laws in the
late 1860s and early 1870s making it a crime
to deprive Negroes of their rights, requiring
federal officials to enforce those rights
 1875- Civil Rights Act outlawed the exculsion
of Negroes from any public accommodations

Violence after the war
Memphis, Tennessee- Whites on a
rampage killed 46 Negroes, and 2 white
sympathizers. 5 Negro women raped. 90
homes, 12 schools, and 4 churches were
burned.
 New Orleans- 1866: a riot against blacks
killed 35 Negroes and 3 whites
 Late 1860s, early 1870s, KKK organized
raids, beatings, and burnings. For
Kentucky, National Archives lists 116 acts
of violence

KKK
National Government and white
violence
Caldwell shot a white man as selfdefense. Was free after trial but later
shot by a white gang.
 The national government, even under
President Grant, became less
enthusiastic about defending blacks.
 Supreme Court Justice John Harlan“Our Constitution is color-blind…”

Recap of Chapter 9
This chapter addresses slave rebellions, the
abolition movement, the Civil War, and the effect
of these events on African-Americans.
 The large-scale violence of the war was used to
end slavery instead of the small-scale violence
of the rebellions because the closing may have
expanded beyond anti-slavery, resulting in a
movement against the capitalist system.
 Zinn writes that the war could limit the freedom
granted to African-Americans by allowing the
government control over how that freedom was
gained.
