Slavery in the United States
What is slavery?
Slavery (definition)
Social institution
defined by law and
custom as the most
absolute involuntary
form of human
servitude.
Slavery (definition)
 Characteristics of slaves:
 their
labor or services are obtained
through force;
 their physical beings are regarded
as the property of another person,
their owner;
 and they are entirely subject to their
owner's will.
Slavery (definition)
 Since earliest times slaves have
been legally defined as things;
therefore, they could, among other
possibilities, be:
 bought
 sold
 traded
 given as a gift
 willed
 pledged for a debt by their owner
Natives as Slaves?
 The number of Native American
slaves was limited in part because
the Native Americans were in their
homeland; they knew the terrain and
could escape fairly easily.
 The settlers found it easier to sell
Native Americans captured in war to
planters in the Caribbean than to turn
them into slaves on their own terrain.
Where did slaves
come from?
The Slave Trade
From the early 16th
to the mid-19th
centuries, more than
10 million Africans
were taken from their
homes.
How were slaves
brought to the
new world from
Africa?
Triangle Trade
Slave ships
followed a
triangular trading
pattern.
Triangle Trade
 On the first leg of their voyage,
vessels left their European home
port laden with a widely assorted
cargo of manufactured goods
which was to be bartered for
slaves and other African produce
on the ship's arrival on the
African coast.
Triangle Trade
 The slaves were then
transported across the Atlantic
to the Caribbean islands or
South American/North American
colonies, on what became known
as the notorious 'Middle
Passage'.
Triangle Trade
 On arrival they were auctioned
like cattle, the majority becoming
field hands on the large
plantations. As payment the
slave captains generally took on
board produce such as cotton,
sugar, coffee or tea before
embarking on the final stage of
their voyage home.
Triangle Trade
Slave Trade Across the Atlantic
The Middle Passage
Captured Slaves in Africa
Captured Slaves in Africa
Slave Ship
What was the
experience of the
Middle Passage like for
the slaves taken across
the Atlantic?
What was the slave
experience like in
the United States?
Slavery in the United States
 In North America the first African slaves
landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619.
 By 1800 some 500,000 slaves resided
in the United States, of whom 50,000
lived in the northern states. The majority
of slaves (more than 9.5 million) were
forcibly shipped to the agricultural
plantations of Central and South
America and the Caribbean.
Slave Auction
 This slave auction advertised
slaves for sale or temporary hire by
their owners. Buyers often paid
$2000 for a skilled, healthy slave.
These auctions often separated
family members from one another,
many of whom never saw their
loved ones again.
Slave Auction
Slave Distribution and Vocations
 Generally, in the northern colonies,
slaves were used as domestics and
in trade
 In the Middle Atlantic colonies they
were used more in agriculture
 In the southern colonies, where
plantation agriculture was the
primary occupation, almost all slaves
were used to work the plantations.
Slave Distribution and Vocations
Slaves of the north often
worked in the home as personal
servants, but also in labor
intensive fields such as ship
builders dockworkers,
lumberjacks, and trades such
as masonry and carpentry work.
Slave Distribution and Vocations
 Slaves of the south cultivated
tobacco, grew rice and indigo, and
picked cotton in the fields. On the
property, slaves could be
blacksmiths, carpenters, or
masons. In the house, slaves often
fulfilled the roles of cooks, barbers,
nursemaids, and butlers.
Slave Distribution and Vocations
 Tobacco in the upper South (Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina) and rice in the
lower South (South Carolina, Georgia).
Slaves also worked on large wheatproducing estates in New York and on
horse-breeding farms in Rhode Island, but
climate and soil restricted the
development of commercial agriculture in
the Northern colonies, and slavery never
became as economically important as it
did in the South.
Slave Distribution and Vocations
 Most of the agriculture in the
southern United States during the
early 19th century was dedicated to
growing one crop—cotton. Most of
the cotton crop was grown on large
plantations that used black slave
labor.
Plantation Work
Plantation Work
Slave Life
 The first provision was that black
slaves, and the children of slave
women, would serve for life. By the
1770s, slaves constituted about 40
percent of the population of the
Southern colonies, with the highest
concentration in South Carolina,
where more than half the people
were slaves.
On the Plantation
 As slavery grew, so too did its diversity.
Slavery varied according to region,
crops, and size of holdings. On farms
and small plantations most slaves came
in frequent contact with their owners,
but on very large plantations, where
slave owners often employed
overseers, slaves might rarely see their
masters.
On the Plantation
 Most slaves on large holdings worked in
gangs, under the supervision of
overseers and slave drivers. Some,
however, especially in the coastal
region of South Carolina and Georgia,
labored under the task system: they
were assigned a certain amount of work
to complete in a day, received less
supervision, and were free to use their
time as they wished once they had
completed their daily assignments.
Slave Treatment
The character of such care
varied, but in purely material
terms such as food, clothing,
housing, and medical attention,
it was generally better in the
pre-Civil War period than in the
colonial period.
Slave Treatment
 Clothing and housing were crude
but functional: slaves typically
received four coarse suits (pants
and shirts for men, dresses for
women, long shirts for children) and
lived in small wooden cabins, one
to a family.
Slave House
Slave House
Slave Treatment
 Although young children were often
malnourished, most working slaves
received a steady supply of pork and
corn, which if lacking in nutritional
balance provided sufficient calories to
fuel their labor. Slaves often
supplemented their rations with produce
that they raised on garden plots allotted
to them.
Slave Treatment
 Masters intervened continually in the
lives of their slaves, from directing their
labor to approving or disapproving
marriages. Some masters made
elaborate written rules, and most
engaged in constant meddling,
directing, nagging, threatening, and
punishing. Many took advantage of their
position to exploit slave women
sexually.
Slave Treatment
 Slaves could not leave their master’s
property without permission, nor board
ships or ferries. Slaves could not own
property, carry canes, disturb the
peace, read, write, or communicate with
slaves on other properties.
 Punishments included whipping,
banishment to the West Indies, and
death
Slave Treatment
 The security and stability of these
families faced severe challenges:
no state law recognized marriage
among slaves, masters rather than
parents had legal authority over
slave children, and the possibility of
forced separation, through sale,
hung over every family.
Slave Punishments
Slave Revolts
 The Stono Rebellion in Charleston,
SC, was an early example of armed
slave rebellion, but because slaves
couldn’t communicate with each
other beyond property lines,
organized revolts were few and far
between.
 More often than not passive revolts,
like faking illness, were employed
to gain some degree of control.
Slave Revolts
Nat Turner’s rebellion in
1831 was the largest and
most violent. 70 slaves
attacked four plantations and
killed 57 whites in Virginia.
They were eventually caught
and hung.
Slave Revolts
John Brown’s raid on the
Harper’s Ferry arsenal in
Virginia (1859) was the
last attempt at armed
rebellion in the South prior
to the Civil War.
Slavery and the Government
 By 1804, all of the northern states had
either banned slavery or passed laws to
gradually end it. In 1808, Congress
banned the importation of slavery to the
US. The already immense slave
population in the South continued to
grow regardless, and made up almost
2/5 of the entire Southern population.
Slavery and the Government
 Missouri Compromise of 1820 – to deal
with the issue of slavery in the western
territories, this compromise allowed
Missouri to be admitted as a slave state,
and Maine to be admitted as a free
state. Slavery was outlawed in future
states to be created north of the 36°30’
latitude
 This maintained the balance of Senate
power between slave and free states.
Slavery and the Government
 The Compromise of 1850 – began
to re-address the issue of what to
do with the newly acquired lands of
the west.
 California
admitted as a free state
 The sale of slaves (but not slavery)
made illegal in Washington D.C.
 Texas would relinquish land to New
Mexico for $10 million
Slavery and the Government
 The Fugitive Slave Act – the last
part of the Compromise of 1850.
Ordered all citizens of the US to
assist in the return of escaped
slaves, and would deny a jury trial
to escaped slaves as well
 Slaves could no longer simply
cross the Ohio River into free
territory. Canada was the only free
destination.
Slavery and the Government
 The Dred Scott Decision – In Scott
vs. Sandford, the US Supreme
Court ruled that:
 Slaves
were not citizens of the and
therefore had no right to sue in
court
 Slaves who had previously lived in
free states, and then became
slaves, were not free
Slavery and the Government
The Dred Scott Decision
(continued):
 Congress had no power to ban
slavery anywhere, due to the
fact that slaves were
considered “private property”,
and therefore legal under the
Constitution
Slavery and the Government
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
(1854) – repealed the Missouri
Compromise by allowing the
new territories of Kansas and
Nebraska the right of “popular
sovereignty”, or the right to
choose their fate as a slave or
free state.
Popular Sovereignty
Popular sovereignty is the
notion that no law or rule is
legitimate unless it rests
directly or indirectly on the
consent of the individuals
concerned.
Popular Sovereignty and States Rights
The 10th Amendment states:
"The powers not delegated to
the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it
to the States, are reserved to
the States respectively, or to
the people."
 Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan,
published 1651, claimed that the
first and only task of political
society was to name an individual
or a group of individuals as
sovereign. This sovereign would
then have absolute power, and
each citizen would owe him
absolute obedience
 John Locke in his writings, Second
Treatise of Government, published
1690, claimed that the legislative
was only empowered to legislate
for the public good. If this trust was
violated, the people retained the
power to replace the legislative with
a new legislative.
Slavery and the Government
 “Bleeding
Kansas” – in effort to
fill the state with slave and nonslave voters, tensions in the
state grew to the point of
violence as outsiders from both
the North and the South moved
to the state in huge waves
Abolitionist Movement
 The abolitionist movement in the
United States worked to end
slavery through political and
religious persuasion. Some
abolitionists defied the laws and
refused to return runaway slaves to
the South.
Abolitionist Movement
Abolitionist Movement
 The abolitionist movement began
during the late 1700’s, mostly by
free African-Americans and
northern whites.
 Convinced that free blacks and
emancipated slaves would never
be given equal treatment in the US,
the American Colonization Society
formed in 1817.
Abolitionist Movement
 The purpose of the Society was to
allow free black and emancipated
slaves free passage back to Africa,
to the country of Liberia (which had
been purchased in 1822). Most
African-Americans found it
offensive, and only about 1,400
took the offer.
Abolitionist Movement
 Influential abolitionists included William
Lloyd Garrison, who started The Liberator,
a newspaper devoted to ending slavery.
That eventually led to the formation of the
American Anti-Slavery Society.
 Frederick Douglas, an escaped slave and
member of the AmAnSlSo, spoke out
against slavery. His biography
documented the hardships experienced by
slaves.
Abolitionist Movement
Sara and Angelina Grimke,
sisters from South Carolina,
were influential women of the
abolitionist movement.
Politically, the Liberty Party was
formed to speak out against
slavery.
The Great Escape
 The Underground Railroad was a
network of escape routes from the
slave South to the free North, and
eventually to Canada. Anywhere
from 40,000 to 100,000 slaves
escaped along the route.
 Harriet Tubman led over 300 slaves
to freedom.
Slavery as a Cause
of the American
Civil War
Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War
 With most presidents having been from
the South, the institution of slavery was
relatively safe.
 When Lincoln, a northerner, won the
election of 1860, the South’s grip on
executive control began to slip. Lincoln
had already proposed in his “House
Divided” speech that he would end
slavery in the western territories if
elected president.
Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War
With the “popular sovereignty”
clause of the Kansas-Nebraska
act, most new states accepted
into the Union chose to be
accepted as non-slave states.
This also gave Senate control
to the North.
Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War
 With both the Executive Branch
and the Congress under Northern
control, it wasn’t a stretch to
imagine the Supreme Court to
follow (the President nominates,
the Senate approves).
 The Supreme Court interprets and
amends the Constitution. Slavery
could be outlawed in the US.
Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War
The continued moral and social
debates over slavery turned
most of the rest of the world
against it, including England
(1833), the main importer of
Southern cotton. This put
pressure on the South to end
slavery.
Slavery as a Cause of the Civil War
 With the threat of limitations placed on,
or the abolishment of slavery, the South
feared for their economic lives.
 With only 1/3 of the nation’s population
living in the South, plantation owners
needed hands to plant, cultivate, and
harvest their cotton and tobacco.
 To pay farm hands would cost too much
money, and no one wanted to work 12
hours a day, six days a week, etc. Free
labor kept costs down and profits up.