Slavery in America
When the North American continent was first colonized by Europeans, the land was vast, the work was harsh, and there was a severe shortage of labor. Men and women were needed to work the land. White bond servants, paying their passage across the ocean from Europe through indentured labor, eased but did not solve the problem. Early in the seventeenth century, a Dutch ship loaded with African slaves introduced a solution—and a new problem—to the New World. Slaves were most economical on large farms where labor-intensive cash crops, such as tobacco, could be grown.
By the end of the American Revolution, slavery had proven unprofitable in the North and was dying out. Even in the South the institution was becoming less useful to farmers as tobacco prices fluctuated and began to drop. However, in 1793 Northerner Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin; this device made it possible for textile mills to use the type of cotton most easily grown in the South.
Cotton replaced tobacco as the South’s main cash crop and slavery became profitable again. Although most Southerners owned no slaves at all, by 1860 the South’s “peculiar institution” was inextricably tied to the region’s economy.
Torn between the economic benefits of slavery and the moral and constitutional issues it raised, white Southerners grew more and more defensive of the institution. They argued that black people, like children, were incapable of caring for themselves and that slavery was a benevolent institution that kept them fed, clothed, and occupied. Most Northerners did not doubt that black people were inferior to whites, but they did doubt the benevolence of slavery. The voices of Northern abolitionists, such as Boston editor and publisher William Lloyd Garrison, became increasingly violent. Educated blacks such as escaped-slave Frederick Douglass wrote eloquent and heartfelt attacks on the institution.
The Underground Railroad was organized to help slaves escape north to freedom. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe, refuted the Southern myth that blacks were happy as slaves.
In reality, treatment of slaves ranged from mild and paternalistic to cruel and sadistic. Husbands, wives, and children were frequently sold away from one another and punishment by whipping was not unusual. The United States Supreme Court in the 1857 Dred Scott Decision ruled that slaves were subhuman property with no rights of citizenship. They had no legal means of protesting the way they were treated. Southerners feared open rebellion but this was rare. However, slaves would pretend illness, organize slowdowns, sabotage farm machinery, and sometimes commit arson or murder. Running away, usually for short periods of time, was common.
The outbreak of the Civil War forever changed the future of the American nation. The war began as a struggle to preserve the Union, not a struggle to free the slaves, but many in the North and South felt that the conflict would ultimately decide both issues. Many slaves escaped to the North in the early years of the war, and several Union generals established abolitionist policies in the Southern land that they conquered. Congress passed laws permitting the seizure of slaves from the property of rebellious Southerners. On September 22, 1862, following the dramatic Union victory at Antietam, President Abraham Lincoln presented the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
This document decreed that, by the power of the United States armed forces, all slaves in states that were still in rebellion one hundred days after September 22 would be "thenceforward and forever free." Furthermore, Lincoln established an institution through which blacks could join the U.S. Army, an unprecedented level of integration at that time. The United States Colored Troops (USCT) served on many battlefields, won numerous Medals of Honor, and ensured eventual Union victory in the war.
On December 6, 1865, eight months after the end of the Civil War, the United States adopted the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed the practice of slavery.
—Sources: Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War edited by Patricia L. Faust (Harper Perennial, 1991), Encyclopedia of the Civil War edited by John S. Bowman (Dorset Press, 1992), and The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton (Bonanza Books, 1982).
By the end of the American Revolution, slavery had proven unprofitable in the North and was dying out. Even in the South the institution was becoming less useful to farmers as tobacco prices fluctuated and began to drop. However, in 1793 Northerner Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin; this device made it possible for textile mills to use the type of cotton most easily grown in the South.
Cotton replaced tobacco as the South’s main cash crop and slavery became profitable again. Although most Southerners owned no slaves at all, by 1860 the South’s “peculiar institution” was inextricably tied to the region’s economy.
Torn between the economic benefits of slavery and the moral and constitutional issues it raised, white Southerners grew more and more defensive of the institution. They argued that black people, like children, were incapable of caring for themselves and that slavery was a benevolent institution that kept them fed, clothed, and occupied. Most Northerners did not doubt that black people were inferior to whites, but they did doubt the benevolence of slavery. The voices of Northern abolitionists, such as Boston editor and publisher William Lloyd Garrison, became increasingly violent. Educated blacks such as escaped-slave Frederick Douglass wrote eloquent and heartfelt attacks on the institution.
The Underground Railroad was organized to help slaves escape north to freedom. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe, refuted the Southern myth that blacks were happy as slaves.
In reality, treatment of slaves ranged from mild and paternalistic to cruel and sadistic. Husbands, wives, and children were frequently sold away from one another and punishment by whipping was not unusual. The United States Supreme Court in the 1857 Dred Scott Decision ruled that slaves were subhuman property with no rights of citizenship. They had no legal means of protesting the way they were treated. Southerners feared open rebellion but this was rare. However, slaves would pretend illness, organize slowdowns, sabotage farm machinery, and sometimes commit arson or murder. Running away, usually for short periods of time, was common.
The outbreak of the Civil War forever changed the future of the American nation. The war began as a struggle to preserve the Union, not a struggle to free the slaves, but many in the North and South felt that the conflict would ultimately decide both issues. Many slaves escaped to the North in the early years of the war, and several Union generals established abolitionist policies in the Southern land that they conquered. Congress passed laws permitting the seizure of slaves from the property of rebellious Southerners. On September 22, 1862, following the dramatic Union victory at Antietam, President Abraham Lincoln presented the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
This document decreed that, by the power of the United States armed forces, all slaves in states that were still in rebellion one hundred days after September 22 would be "thenceforward and forever free." Furthermore, Lincoln established an institution through which blacks could join the U.S. Army, an unprecedented level of integration at that time. The United States Colored Troops (USCT) served on many battlefields, won numerous Medals of Honor, and ensured eventual Union victory in the war.
On December 6, 1865, eight months after the end of the Civil War, the United States adopted the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed the practice of slavery.
—Sources: Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War edited by Patricia L. Faust (Harper Perennial, 1991), Encyclopedia of the Civil War edited by John S. Bowman (Dorset Press, 1992), and The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War by Bruce Catton (Bonanza Books, 1982).
TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE VOYAGES:
Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million slaves had been shipped from Africa, and 10.7 million had arrived in the Americas. The Atlantic Slave Trade was likely the most costly in human life of all of long-distance global migrations.
The first Africans forced to work in the New World left from Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century, not from Africa. The first slave voyage direct from Africa to the Americas probably sailed in 1526.
The volume of slaves carried off from Africa reached thirty thousand per year in the 1690s and eighty-five thousand per year a century later. More than eight out of ten Africans forced into the slave trade made their journeys in the century and a half after 1700.
By 1820, nearly four Africans for every one European had crossed the Atlantic. About four out of every five females that traversed the Atlantic were from Africa.
The majority of enslaved Africans were brought to British North America between 1720 and 1780. The decade 1821 to 1830 still saw over 80,000 people a year leaving Africa in slave ships. Well over a million more – one tenth of the volume carried off in the slave trade era – followed within the next twenty years.
Africans carried to Brazil came overwhelmingly from Angola. Africans carried to North America, including the Caribbean, left from mainly West Africa.
Well over 90 percent of enslaved Africans were imported into the Caribbean and South America. Only about 6 percent of African captives were sent directly to British North America. Yet by 1825, the US had a quarter of blacks in the New World.
The Middle Passage was dangerous and miserable for African slaves. The sexes were separated, kept naked, packed close together, and the men were chained for long periods. About twelve percent of those who embarked did not survive the voyage.
US SLAVERY COMPARED TO SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS:
American plantations were dwarfed by those in the West Indies. In the Caribbean, slaves were held on much larger units, with many plantations holding 150 slaves or more. In the American South, in contrast, only one slaveholder held as many as a thousand slaves, and just 125 had over 250 slaves.
In the Caribbean, Dutch Guiana, and Brazil, the slave death rate was so high and the birth rate so low that they could not sustain their population without importations from Africa. Rates of natural decrease ran as high as 5 percent a year. While the death rate of US slaves was about the same as that of Jamaican slaves, the fertility rate was more than 80 percent higher in the United States.
US slaves were more generations removed from Africa than those in the Caribbean. In the nineteenth century, the majority of slaves in the British Caribbean and Brazil were born in Africa. In contrast, by 1850, most US slaves were third-, fourth-, or fifth generation Americans.
Slavery in the US was distinctive in the near balance of the sexes and the ability of the slave population to increase its numbers by natural reproduction. Unlike any other slave society, the US had a high and sustained natural increase in the slave population for a more than a century and a half.
CHILDREN:
There were few instances in which slave women were released from field work for extended periods during slavery. Even during the last week before childbirth, pregnant women on average picked three-quarters or more of the amount normal for women.
Infant and child mortality rates were twice as high among slave children as among southern white children. Half of all slave infants died in their first year of life. A major contributor to the high infant and child death rate was chronic undernourishment.
The average birth weight of slave infants was less than 5.5 pounds, considered severely underweight by today’s standards.
Most infants of enslaved mothers were weaned within three or four months. Even in the eighteenth century, the earliest weaning age advised by doctors was eight months.
After weaning, slave infants were fed a starch-based diet, consisting of foods such as gruel, which lacked sufficient nutrients for health and growth.
HEALTH AND MORTALITY:
Slaves suffered a variety of miserable and often fatal maladies due to the Atlantic Slave Trade, and to inhumane living and working conditions.
Common symptoms among enslaved populations included: blindness; abdominal swelling; bowed legs; skin lesions; and convulsions. Common conditions among enslaved populations included: beriberi (caused by a deficiency of thiamine); pellagra (caused by a niacin deficiency); tetany (caused by deficiencies of calcium, magnesium, and Vitamin D); rickets (also caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D); and kwashiorkor (caused by severe protein deficiency).
Diarrhea, dysentery, whooping cough, and respiratory diseases as well as worms pushed the infant and early childhood death rate of slaves to twice that experienced by white infants and children.
DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE:
The domestic slave trade in the US distributed the African American population throughout the South in a migration that greatly surpassed in volume the Atlantic Slave Trade to North America.
Though Congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808, domestic slave trade flourished, and the slave population in the US nearly tripled over the next 50 years.
The domestic trade continued into the 1860s and displaced approximately 1.2 million men, women, and children, the vast majority of whom were born in America.
To be “sold down the river” was one of the most dreaded prospects of the enslaved population. Some destinations, particularly the Louisiana sugar plantations, had especially grim reputations. But it was the destruction of family that made the domestic slave trade so terrifying.
PROFITABILITY:
Prices of slaves varied widely over time, due to factors including supply, and changes in prices of commodities such as cotton. Even considering the relative expense of owning and keeping a slave, slavery was profitable.
In order to ensure the profitability of slaves, and to produce maximum “return on investment,” slave owners generally supplied only the minimum food and shelter needed for survival, and forced their slaves to work from sunrise to sunset.
Although young adult men had the highest expected levels of output, young adult women had value over and above their ability to work in the fields; they were able to have children who by law were also slaves of the owner of the mother. Therefore, the average price of female slaves was higher than their male counterparts up to puberty age. Men around the age of 25-years-old were the most “valuable.”
Slaveholding became more concentrated over time, particularly as slavery was abolished in the northern states. The fraction of households owning slaves fell from 36 percent in 1830 to 25 percent in 1860.
During the Civil War, roughly 180,000 black men served in the Union Army, and another 29,000 served in the Navy. Three-fifths of all black troops were former slaves.
WORKS CITED AND RESOURCES:
University of Virginia, American Slave Narratives
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, Emory University
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789)
Special thanks to Steven Mintz, University of Texas
Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million slaves had been shipped from Africa, and 10.7 million had arrived in the Americas. The Atlantic Slave Trade was likely the most costly in human life of all of long-distance global migrations.
The first Africans forced to work in the New World left from Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century, not from Africa. The first slave voyage direct from Africa to the Americas probably sailed in 1526.
The volume of slaves carried off from Africa reached thirty thousand per year in the 1690s and eighty-five thousand per year a century later. More than eight out of ten Africans forced into the slave trade made their journeys in the century and a half after 1700.
By 1820, nearly four Africans for every one European had crossed the Atlantic. About four out of every five females that traversed the Atlantic were from Africa.
The majority of enslaved Africans were brought to British North America between 1720 and 1780. The decade 1821 to 1830 still saw over 80,000 people a year leaving Africa in slave ships. Well over a million more – one tenth of the volume carried off in the slave trade era – followed within the next twenty years.
Africans carried to Brazil came overwhelmingly from Angola. Africans carried to North America, including the Caribbean, left from mainly West Africa.
Well over 90 percent of enslaved Africans were imported into the Caribbean and South America. Only about 6 percent of African captives were sent directly to British North America. Yet by 1825, the US had a quarter of blacks in the New World.
The Middle Passage was dangerous and miserable for African slaves. The sexes were separated, kept naked, packed close together, and the men were chained for long periods. About twelve percent of those who embarked did not survive the voyage.
US SLAVERY COMPARED TO SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS:
American plantations were dwarfed by those in the West Indies. In the Caribbean, slaves were held on much larger units, with many plantations holding 150 slaves or more. In the American South, in contrast, only one slaveholder held as many as a thousand slaves, and just 125 had over 250 slaves.
In the Caribbean, Dutch Guiana, and Brazil, the slave death rate was so high and the birth rate so low that they could not sustain their population without importations from Africa. Rates of natural decrease ran as high as 5 percent a year. While the death rate of US slaves was about the same as that of Jamaican slaves, the fertility rate was more than 80 percent higher in the United States.
US slaves were more generations removed from Africa than those in the Caribbean. In the nineteenth century, the majority of slaves in the British Caribbean and Brazil were born in Africa. In contrast, by 1850, most US slaves were third-, fourth-, or fifth generation Americans.
Slavery in the US was distinctive in the near balance of the sexes and the ability of the slave population to increase its numbers by natural reproduction. Unlike any other slave society, the US had a high and sustained natural increase in the slave population for a more than a century and a half.
CHILDREN:
There were few instances in which slave women were released from field work for extended periods during slavery. Even during the last week before childbirth, pregnant women on average picked three-quarters or more of the amount normal for women.
Infant and child mortality rates were twice as high among slave children as among southern white children. Half of all slave infants died in their first year of life. A major contributor to the high infant and child death rate was chronic undernourishment.
The average birth weight of slave infants was less than 5.5 pounds, considered severely underweight by today’s standards.
Most infants of enslaved mothers were weaned within three or four months. Even in the eighteenth century, the earliest weaning age advised by doctors was eight months.
After weaning, slave infants were fed a starch-based diet, consisting of foods such as gruel, which lacked sufficient nutrients for health and growth.
HEALTH AND MORTALITY:
Slaves suffered a variety of miserable and often fatal maladies due to the Atlantic Slave Trade, and to inhumane living and working conditions.
Common symptoms among enslaved populations included: blindness; abdominal swelling; bowed legs; skin lesions; and convulsions. Common conditions among enslaved populations included: beriberi (caused by a deficiency of thiamine); pellagra (caused by a niacin deficiency); tetany (caused by deficiencies of calcium, magnesium, and Vitamin D); rickets (also caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D); and kwashiorkor (caused by severe protein deficiency).
Diarrhea, dysentery, whooping cough, and respiratory diseases as well as worms pushed the infant and early childhood death rate of slaves to twice that experienced by white infants and children.
DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE:
The domestic slave trade in the US distributed the African American population throughout the South in a migration that greatly surpassed in volume the Atlantic Slave Trade to North America.
Though Congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808, domestic slave trade flourished, and the slave population in the US nearly tripled over the next 50 years.
The domestic trade continued into the 1860s and displaced approximately 1.2 million men, women, and children, the vast majority of whom were born in America.
To be “sold down the river” was one of the most dreaded prospects of the enslaved population. Some destinations, particularly the Louisiana sugar plantations, had especially grim reputations. But it was the destruction of family that made the domestic slave trade so terrifying.
PROFITABILITY:
Prices of slaves varied widely over time, due to factors including supply, and changes in prices of commodities such as cotton. Even considering the relative expense of owning and keeping a slave, slavery was profitable.
In order to ensure the profitability of slaves, and to produce maximum “return on investment,” slave owners generally supplied only the minimum food and shelter needed for survival, and forced their slaves to work from sunrise to sunset.
Although young adult men had the highest expected levels of output, young adult women had value over and above their ability to work in the fields; they were able to have children who by law were also slaves of the owner of the mother. Therefore, the average price of female slaves was higher than their male counterparts up to puberty age. Men around the age of 25-years-old were the most “valuable.”
Slaveholding became more concentrated over time, particularly as slavery was abolished in the northern states. The fraction of households owning slaves fell from 36 percent in 1830 to 25 percent in 1860.
During the Civil War, roughly 180,000 black men served in the Union Army, and another 29,000 served in the Navy. Three-fifths of all black troops were former slaves.
WORKS CITED AND RESOURCES:
University of Virginia, American Slave Narratives
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, Emory University
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789)
Special thanks to Steven Mintz, University of Texas
Reflection:
Slavery in America is an important factor to know in today's society. I think it is very important to know about slavery and what the slaves went through back in the slave times. According to Aboard a Slave Ship, In 1829, the slaves were taken from Africa to the United States to be sold off to people. The ship they were transported on was filled with over 500 slaves that were kept naked and dirty. The space was limited and often slaves would jump off the edge of the ship to end their life, or die from suffocation and diseases. If the slaves died, they were thrown overboard. It was rare if they came to America with over half of the slaves they started with.
In the article, Slave Auction, once the slaves arrived to America they were sold off. In 1859, an enormous slave auction took place in Savannah Georgia. Often times the families would be separated or the children would lose their parents. It was a devastating situation for the slaves. The slaves were examined by the buyers from head to toe. They would pull on their mouths and feel around their arms and legs to see how muscular they are. The women were examined also. The buyers would also look for scars or things that were signs of an untrustworthy slave or a slave that didn't follow the
rules.
Once the slaves were bought, the life on a plantation was miserable. According to Life on the Plantation, the slaves were beaten to the bone. They would work an unhealthy amount of hours and hardly get fed anything good. Often times the slaves would try to escape and get whipped until their flesh was gone. The slaves were sometimes even whipped for the smallest things.
I think that the life of a slave is an important time in history for everyone to know. The way they were treated compared to how equality is looked at now is a big thing in society today. I think that slavery was an awful thing and it should have never happened. It shocks me how these human beings were looked at as disgusting animals. America has come a long way.
Slavery in America is an important factor to know in today's society. I think it is very important to know about slavery and what the slaves went through back in the slave times. According to Aboard a Slave Ship, In 1829, the slaves were taken from Africa to the United States to be sold off to people. The ship they were transported on was filled with over 500 slaves that were kept naked and dirty. The space was limited and often slaves would jump off the edge of the ship to end their life, or die from suffocation and diseases. If the slaves died, they were thrown overboard. It was rare if they came to America with over half of the slaves they started with.
In the article, Slave Auction, once the slaves arrived to America they were sold off. In 1859, an enormous slave auction took place in Savannah Georgia. Often times the families would be separated or the children would lose their parents. It was a devastating situation for the slaves. The slaves were examined by the buyers from head to toe. They would pull on their mouths and feel around their arms and legs to see how muscular they are. The women were examined also. The buyers would also look for scars or things that were signs of an untrustworthy slave or a slave that didn't follow the
rules.
Once the slaves were bought, the life on a plantation was miserable. According to Life on the Plantation, the slaves were beaten to the bone. They would work an unhealthy amount of hours and hardly get fed anything good. Often times the slaves would try to escape and get whipped until their flesh was gone. The slaves were sometimes even whipped for the smallest things.
I think that the life of a slave is an important time in history for everyone to know. The way they were treated compared to how equality is looked at now is a big thing in society today. I think that slavery was an awful thing and it should have never happened. It shocks me how these human beings were looked at as disgusting animals. America has come a long way.