As the demand for cotton grew and the nation expanded, slavery became more systemic, codified, and regulated, just like the lives of all slaves. The sale of slaves and the products of their labor secured the nation`s position as a global economic and political power, but they faced increasingly inhumane conditions. They were rented to increase their value, sold to pay off their debts and bequeathed to the next generation. Slavery affected everyone from garment workers to bankers and shipbuilders in the North; to the planter elite, the working class slave hunters, and the slave traders of the South; To the Yeoman peasants and poor whites who could not compete with free labor. In addition, in the 1830s, President Andrew Jackson implemented his plan to expel the Indians, uprooting another group of people from their ancestral lands in the name of wealth. As slavery spread across the country, opposition grew, both morally and economically. Efforts at interracial abolition became stronger as slaves, free blacks, and some white citizens fought for an end to slavery and a broader definition of freedom. The nation was in a state of upheaval, and it reached its climax after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president; a month later, in December 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, citing as a reason “the growing hostility of non-slave states to the institution of slavery.” Five years later, the Civil War was over, and 246 years after the sale of the “20 and Strange Negroes” to Virginia, the 13th Amendment guaranteed that the country would never again be defined as a slave nation. Ava DuVernay`s 13th documentary in 2016 drew mainstream attention to the fact that slavery is still legal in the United States. Since 2018, Colorado, Nebraska and Utah have abolished slavery within their borders, joining Rhode Island, the only state to have completely abolished slavery before the passage of the 13th Amendment. More than 20 states are actively organizing for abolition. Northerners dominated the Western movement to the Midwest region after the American Revolution; When states were organized, they voted to ban slavery in their constitutions when they gained statehood: Ohio in 1803, Indiana in 1816, and Illinois in 1818. What developed was a northern bloc of free states united in a contiguous geographical area that generally shared an anti-slavery culture.
The exceptions were the areas along the Ohio River that were colonized by the Southerners: the southern parts of Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. The inhabitants of these regions generally shared the culture and attitude of the South. Moreover, these areas were devoted to agriculture longer than the industrialized parts of the north of these states, and some peasants used slave labor. In Illinois, for example, while the slave trade was banned, it was legal to bring slaves from Kentucky to Illinois and use them there as long as the slaves left Illinois one day a year (they “visited”). The emancipation of slaves in the North led to the growth of the free black population in the North, from several hundred in the 1770s to nearly 50,000 in 1810. [161] The legal institution of human slavery, which included slavery primarily of Africans and African Americans, was widespread in the United States from its founding in 1776 until 1865, primarily in the South. Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas. From 1526, at the beginning of the colonial period, it was practiced in the later British colonies, including the Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. Under the law, a slave person was treated as property that could be bought, sold or given. Slavery continued in about half of the U.S. states until it was abolished. In the decades following the end of reconstruction, many of the economic and social functions of slavery continued through segregation, sharecropping and renting of convicts.
The South developed an agricultural economy that depended on staple crops. Its planters quickly gained a significantly higher number and a significantly higher proportion of slaves in the overall population, as its raw material crops were labor-intensive. [47] In the beginning, southern slaves worked mainly on farms and plantations where indigo, rice, and tobacco were grown; Cotton did not become an important crop until after the 1790s. Previously, long-fiber cotton was grown mainly in the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. After the Revolutionary War, African Americans took their case to state buildings and courts, where they fought vigorously for their freedom and the abolition of slavery. Elizabeth Freeman, better known as Mum Bett, a Massachusetts slave whose husband died during the Revolutionary War, was one such visionary. The new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 states: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and inalienable rights; This includes the right to enjoy and defend their lives and freedoms. Arguing that slavery hurt this feeling, Bett sued for his freedom and won. After the decision, Bett changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman to indicate her new status. Their precedent effectively contributed to ending slavery in Massachusetts. In 1508, Juan Ponce de León founded the Spanish colony in Puerto Rico, which used the indigenous Taínos as laborers. The Taínos were largely eradicated by war, overwork and diseases brought by the Spaniards.
To complement the declining Taíno population, the first African slaves were imported to Puerto Rico in 1513. The abolition of Indian slavery in 1542 with the new laws increased the demand for African slaves. [11] In the United States, in the early 19th century, slave owners were free and legal to use them as sex objects. This follows the free use of female slaves on slave ships by crews. [112]: 83 Rhoda Phillips` name was first officially registered in the deed of sale in 1832. She was bought when she was about 1 year old, along with her mother Milley and sister Martha, for $550. Slaveholder Thomas Gleaves eventually acquired Rhoda. He bequeathed it to his family in his will, where it is valued at $200. She remained a slave by them until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. After that, Rhoda reportedly married a man and had eight children with him. Upon his death, the Gleaves family published an obituary in The Nashville Banner showing that the family still could not see the inhumanity of slavery. “Aunt Rhody,” says the obituary, “was raised by Mr.
Gleaves and has lived with the family all her life. She was one of the dark old ones responsible for the creation of so many of her young masters. In this Rhoda daguerreotype, she is about 19 years old, and contrary to the practice of the time, Rhoda appears alone in the photo. Typically, slaves were shown with white children or in the background of a family photo, emphasizing their servitude. Rhoda`s story highlights one of the perversities of slavery: for the Gleave, Rhoda was a member of the family, even when they owned it. For most of the British colonial period, slavery existed in all colonies. Enslaved people in the North generally worked as domestic servants, artisans, labourers and artisans, with the largest number working in the cities. Many men worked on the docks and in navigation. By 1703, more than 42 percent of New York households were enslaved, the second highest proportion of any city in the colonies, behind Charleston, South Carolina. [45] But slaves were also used as farm laborers in farming communities, particularly in the South, but also in the areas of New York State and Long Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey. In 1770, there were 397,924 blacks out of a population of 2.17 million.
They were unevenly distributed: there were 14,867 in New England, where they represented 3% of the population; 34,679 in the mid-Atlantic colonies, where they represented 6% of the population (19,000 were in New York or 11%); and 347,378 in the five southern colonies, where they made up 31% of the population. [46] Under the Constitution, Congress could not prohibit the trade in imported slaves, which was allowed in South Carolina until 1808. However, the Third Congress regulated this in the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which banned U.S. shipbuilding and commercial equipment. Subsequent laws in 1800 and 1803 sought to prevent trade by prohibiting U.S. investment in trade and U.S. employment on ships in commerce, and by prohibiting imports into states that had abolished slavery, which all states except South Carolina had in 1807. [172] [173] The last law prohibiting the importation of slaves was passed in 1807 and came into force in 1808. However, the illegal importation of African slaves (smuggling) was common. [3] The Cuban slave trade between 1796 and 1807 was dominated by American slave ships. Despite the 1794 law, Rhode Island`s slave ship owners found ways to continue supplying slave-owning states. The total fleet of American slave ships in 1806 was estimated to be nearly 75% the size of the British.
[174]: 63, 65 The first enslaved Africans in mainland North America came via Santo Domingo to the colony of San Miguel de Gualdape (probably in Winyah Bay in present-day South Carolina), founded in 1526 by the Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón. [17] The unfortunate colony was almost immediately disrupted by a leadership battle, in which slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among Native Americans. De Ayllón and many settlers died soon after of an epidemic and the colony was abandoned. Settlers and slaves who had not escaped returned to Santo Domingo. [17] But the reality for thousands of former slaves was determined by a different set of laws.