Slavery and Abolitionism

Historical Background

Atlantic Slave Trade Triangle

The slave trade began with Portuguese, and some Spanish, traders taking African slaves to the American colonies they had conquered in the 15th century. British sailors became involved in the trade in the 16th century, and the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) gave them the right to sell slaves in the Spanish Empire.

In the 18th century, perhaps 6 million Africans were taken to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them in British ships.

For the British slave traders it was a three-legged journey, called the 'triangular trade':

The first leg of the voyage carried a cargo that often included iron, cloth, brandy, firearms, and gunpowder.

Upon landing on Africa's "slave coast," the cargo was exchanged for Africans. Fully loaded with its human cargo, the ship set sail for the Americas, where the slaves were exchanged for sugar, tobacco, or some other product.

Finally, taking a cargo of rum and sugar back to sell in England.

The Middle Passage

Conditions on the Middle Passage were horrible.

The African slave boarding the ship had no idea what lay ahead. Africans who had made the Middle Passage to the plantations of the New World did not return to their homeland to tell what happened to those people who suddenly disappeared. Sometimes the captured Africans were told by the white men on the ships that they were to work in the fields. But this was difficult to believe, since, from the African's experience, tending crops took so little time and didn't require many hands. So what were they to believe? More than a few thought that the Europeans were cannibals. Olaudah Equiano, an African captured as a boy who later wrote an autobiography, recalled . . .

When I looked round the ship too and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate and quite overpowered with horrow and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. . . . I asked if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces and long hair?"

The slaves were branded with hot irons and restrained with shackles. Their "living quarters" was often a deck within the ship that had less than five feet of headroom -- and throughout a large portion of the deck, sleeping shelves cut this limited amount of headroom in half.4 Lack of standing headroom was the least of the slaves' problems, though. With 300 to 400 people packed in a tiny area -- an area with little ventilation and, in some cases, not even enough space to place buckets for human waste -- disease was prevalent. According to Equiano, "The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died."

Faced with the nightmarish conditions of the voyage and the unknown future that lay beyond, many Africans preferred to die. But even the choice of suicide was taken away from these persons. From the captain's point of view, his human cargo was extremely valuable and had to be kept alive and, if possible, uninjured. A slave who tried to starve him or herself was tortured. If torture didn't work, the slave was force fed with the help of a contraption called a speculum orum, which held the mouth open.

Despite the captain's desire to keep as many slaves as possible alive, Middle Passage mortality rates were high. Although it's difficult to determine how many Africans died en route to the new world, it is now believed that between ten and twenty percent of those transported lost their lives.

Slave Auctions

In the Americas enslaved Africans would be sold to the highest bidder at slave auctions.

Once they had been bought, enslaved Africans worked for nothing on plantations.

They belonged to the plantation owner, like any other possession, and had no rights at all. The enslaved Africans were often punished very harshly.

Enslaved Africans resisted against their enslavement in many ways, from revolution to silent, personal resistance. Some refused to be enslaved and took their own lives. Sometimes pregnant women preferred abortion to bringing a child into slavery.

On the plantations, many enslaved Africans tried to slow down the pace of work by pretending to be ill, causing fires or ‘accidentally' breaking tools. Whenever possible, enslaved Africans ran away. Some escaped to South America, England or North America. Also there were hundreds of slave revolts.

Two thirds of the enslaved Africans, taken to the Americas, ended up on sugar plantations. Sugar was used to sweeten another crop harvested by enslaved Africans in the West Indies - coffee.

With the money made from the sale of enslaved Africans, goods such as sugar, coffee and tobacco were bought and carried back to Britain for sale. The ships were loaded with produce from the plantations for the voyage home.

Life for enslaved men and women

In the early 19th century, most enslaved men and women worked on large agricultural plantations as house servants or field hands.

Life for enslaved men and women was brutal; they were subject to repression, harsh punishments, and strict racial policing.

They adopted a variety of mechanisms to cope with the degrading realities of life on the plantation. They resisted slavery through everyday acts, while also occasionally plotting larger-scale revolts.

Enslaved men and women created their own unique religious culture in the US South, combining elements of Christianity and West African traditions and spiritual beliefs.

Adaptation to slavery

- Conditioning, absolute power resulted in absolute dependency, constant insecurity (fear of being sold and fear for life)

- lack of awareness that slave system was bad, accepted as a fact- Slave domains- Slave family- Slave culture: growth of distinct types of music, story-telling, religious beliefs- Slave religion- Slave community

Resistance to Slavery

Despite the horrible conditions, slave revolts were very infrequent

- The only serious revolt was in 1831 by Nat Turner, a well-educated and deeply religious slave managed to win the support of about 70 slaves and killed 55 whites before being captured and executed

- John Brown’s attempt to stir up a slave revolt in 1850 failed miserably- Reasons: impossible to organize, whites had far too much power and worked together,

they weren’t allowed to own firearms, a revolt would have basically been equal to a mass suicide

The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses from which fugitive slaves made their way as they fled to the North, into free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. It had NOTHING to do with railroads or trains ;)

- Individual slaves found it difficult to escape from slavery and it was virtually impossible for a large family to make it to freedom

- 90% of runaways were male and 75% under 35, most were caught and severely punished

- It is difficult to know exactly how many slaves escaped, but it seems unlikely that more than a few hundred slaves a year succeeded; most fugitives came from the Upper South, it was far harder to escape from the Deep South

- Challenges: most slaves could not read, so they could not read any directions, evidence was also dangerous – spirituals and gospels often had hidden messages e.g. “Follow the drinking gourd”, follow the Big Dipper to the North Star

- A few slaves who had succeeded, ventured back into the South to help slaves escape e.g. Harriet Tubman who was also known as the Conductor of the Underground Railroad, and returned south 19 times, despite a huge reward on her head (MYTH: $40,000), she was never caught

Why did slave owners work so hard to keep their slaves uneducated?

Education is empowerment. If you want to keep someone down, you keep them uneducated.  Knowledge is power.

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free” - Frederick DouglassOne of the most dangerous things in the world to slavery was education.“ – Frederick Douglass

"There was one thing that the white South feared more than negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency."

- W.E.B. Du Bois, 1915

AbolitionismThe American abolitionist crusade was a multi-faceted, long term reform movement that persisted from around 1830 through to the 1860s.

The abolitionist movement evolved from religious protest and colonization efforts to political organization and violent protest.

- Anti-slavery success in the North with abolition, however, there relatively few slaves in the North

- Only gradual abolition of slavery in the North- Racist prejudice and discrimination existed in the North, too- Many Northern slave owners sold their slaves to the South, rather than free them - Limited political success- Disagreements on strategy- Main failure of abolitionists was lack of success in winning white support in the South- In 1830s: William Lloyd Garrison from Boston rejected the notion of gradual

emancipation and demanded immediate abolition, however not offering solutions on how it should be done

- In 1832: National Ani-Slavery Society- Support of British anti-slavery writings (Britain abolished slavery in all colonies in 1833)

The Abolitionists

- Difficult to categorize: more urban than rural, conservative and radical, religious and scientific, most leaders were well educated and fairly wealthy, women and freedmen e.g. Harriet Beecher Stowe (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”) and ex-slave Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (1818-95) was a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator. Born a slave, Douglass escaped at age 20 and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery activist. His three autobiographies are considered important works of the slave narrative tradition as well as classics of American autobiography. Douglass’ work as a reformer ranged from his abolitionist activities in the early 1840s to his attacks on Jim Crow and lynching in the 1890s. For 16 years he edited an influential black newspaper and achieved international fame as an inspiring and persuasive speaker and writer. In thousands of speeches and editorials, he levied a powerful indictment

against slavery and racism, provided an indomitable voice of hope for his people, embraced antislavery politics and preached his own brand of American ideals.

Southern response to abolitionism

- Vigorous defense of slavery in print and in words- Anti-slavery literature was excluded and banned from most Southern states, punishment

could result in death for slaves- From 1830s on it was dangerous to express anti-slavery opinions in the South, laws

limiting freedom of speech- Those suspected of having abolitionist sympathies were driven out, often after being

tarred and feathered

- Many Southern states put a price on the head leading abolitionists- The white South, slaveholders and non-slaveholders alike, was united in its resistance to

abolitionism - The abolitionist crusade may have worsened the situation for slaves and done very little to

help them but it did a great deal to heighten sectional animosity

A cartoon from 1850 defending Southern slavery against Northern critics and visiting reformers from Britain

The Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

The Emancipation Proclamation is arguably one of the top ten most important documents in the history of the United States; however, it is also one of the most misunderstood. Here are ten facts providing the basics on the proclamation and the history surrounding it. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

President Lincoln justified the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure intended to cripple the Confederacy. Being careful to respect the limits of his authority, Lincoln applied the Emancipation Proclamation only to the Southern states in rebellion.

The Southern states used slaves to support their armies on the field and to manage the home front so more men could go off to fight. In a display of his political genius, President Lincoln shrewdly justified the Emancipation Proclamation as a “fit and necessary war measure” in order to cripple the Confederacy’s use of slaves in the war effort. Lincoln also declared that the Proclamation would be enforced under his power as Commander-in-Chief, and that the freedom of the slaves would be maintained by the “Executive government of the United States.”

Up until September 1862, the main focus of the war had been to preserve the Union. With the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation freedom for slaves now became a legitimate war aim.

The Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for African-Americans to fight for their freedom.Lincoln declared in the Proclamation that African-Americans of “suitable condition, would be received into the armed service of the United States.” Five months after the Proclamation took effect; the War Department of the United States issued General Orders No. 143, establishing the United States Colored Troops (USCT). By the end of the war, over 200,000 African-Americans would serve in the Union army and navy.

The Emancipation Proclamation led the way to total abolition of slavery in the United States. With the Emancipation Proclamation, the aim of the war changed to include the freeing of slaves in addition to preserving the Union. Although the Proclamation initially freed only the slaves in the rebellious states, by the end of the war the Proclamation had influenced and prepared citizens to advocate and accept abolition for all slaves in both the North and South. The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States, was passed on December 6th, 1865.