The Civil War & Reconstruction

American Slavery

Get a working definition of slavery as well as a larger, global history of the institution.

Develop a very general understanding of slavery’s historical trajectory and nature in the U.S. Although more information on slavery and its role in the Civil

War is provided in other presentations, students who want more detailed information should take the American Slavery seminar.

Students will be reading Frederick Douglass’s A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to develop a stronger understanding of antebellum slavery than they will get from this presentation.

In the end, students should have an understanding of slavery as an institution so that they can understand its relation to the Civil War and Reconstruction.

This Presentation

Slavery in the Making of the USASlavery was essential to the making of the

United States. The forced labor of at least 12 generations of black people created substantial wealth for men and women of the slaveholding class—the slaveholders and the doctors, traders, lawyers, bankers, farmers, law enforcement officers, politicians, judges, insurance agents, saloon owners, sailors, and merchants—who all contributed to and benefited from slavery. This wealth translated into significant political power.

Slavery in the Making of the USAThe slave trade, the strength—manpower to

build and cultivate, as well as, the products produced by African slaves—cotton, tobacco, rice, grain, indigo, and sugar—provided the basis for the nation’s wealth, underwriting the industrial revolution, and allowing the U.S. to project its power onto the rest of the world.

When many Americans think of slavery they imagine:Slavery as benign, as in it didn’t harm enslaved people.Fatherly and motherly slaveholders.Happy, ignorant, dependent slaves.Cotton picking as the only type of work that enslaved

people performed.For some, extreme physical violence—whipping,

multination, and rape—and psychological violence—social death, separation of families, etc.

Some confuse African slavery in British Colonial North America (the precursor to the USA) with indentured servitude or present day types of oppression.This is incorrect.

Slavery in the Popular Imagination

Most Americans develop their (mis)understandings of slavery from popular culture or public history projects:Novels—Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Gone with the WindFilms—“Gone with the Wind,” “Roots,” “Glory,” and

“The Patriot”Documentaries—“Africans in America” and “Slavery

and the Making of America”Library & Museum Exhibits, National Parks Service

sites, and Historical Reenactments.This insight gained from popular culture sources

isn’t wrong, per se. However, a lot of it is incorrect or has been disproven by researchers.

Slavery in the Popular Imagination

What did it entail in British Colonial North America (BCNA), or what became the United States?

What is slavery?

Slavery is the “permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons.” Orlando Patterson, “Slavery and Social Death,” in Goodheart ed., Slavery in American Society, 3-4.

Chattel slavery, as it developed in BCNA, involved the outright ownership of another human being, similar to owning land, goods, etc. for the duration of their life and that of their children.

The institution created a “social death” for those who are enslaved. Social death, as Patterson shows, involves not only a separation from one’s ancestral birthplace but also the stripping of basic human rights and social and legal protections enjoyed by everyone else.

These two dimensions of chattel slavery are what separate it from other forms of domination, oppression, or unfree labor.

Chattel Slavery

To enslave Africans and African Americans, as Patterson, defines it, Europeans and European Americans had to assert 3 types of power on a routine basis: Social

Violence or the threat of violence (threat of rape, disfigurement, the lash, sale, or death to extort compliance);

Psychological Convince someone to accept their subjugated position (often to avoid

violence or death) Natal alienation—cast enslaved people out of normal human order &

its protections (life, liberty, family). Isolate them socially, refuse to acknowledge social roles, deny them the right to perform social roles & enjoy basic human protections); and

Cultural Establish a larger power system (law and ideology) that forces

compliance and protects the interests of the master.

Once they have been dishonored, enslaved people have no value to society, except in relation to the master class.

Enslaving People

These 3 assertions of power created “dishonored” and “socially dead” people.

In BCNA, this was done primarily to people of African descent (some Native Americans were similarly enslaved but English indentured servants were not), it was lifelong, and hereditary.

This treatment of slaves emerged in BCNA over time and only after colonists experimented with other types of unfree labor.

Enslaving People

Most cultures over the span of human history had rulers and ruling classes who accepted that some members of their society might be deemed inferior and subjected to enslavement or oppression.

Slavery before 1500

Source for the next 7 slides: Paul Finkelman, ed. Defending Slavery

Legitimacy rested on ideas of warfare.Enemies captured in battle could be killed or

considered to be “socially” or “legally” “dead” and thereby enslaved.

They could be freed once rulers changed or if their side won a battle.

Punishment for criminal behavior.Punishment for those who fell into debt

(might sell self or a loved one to relieve economic burden or pay off a debt).Any person could find themselves enslaved.

Basis of Enslavement before 1500

Prisoners of warDebtorsBefore the 14th century (aka 1500s) slavery

was only marginally based on race or ethnicity.Some enslaved people were from another

ethnic group: Greeks enslaved Persians, Romans enslaved Carthagenians, etc. and vice versa.

Others were from the same national group: Chinese slaves in China, African slaves in different and similar African clans.

Who could be enslaved before 1500?

Manumission easier.Freed slaves integrated back into society.Slavery was never confined to one racial or

one ethnic group.In earlier times, any person could be

enslaved. However, in what became the U.S., only Africans and their descendants could be enslaved for life and have their children enslaved.

In the U.S., only blacks could be enslaved for life and whites, no matter their religion, ethnicity, class, or national origin could be enslaved.

Slavery before 1500

Enslaved people were not identified by race so there was no way to identify them by sight.

Enslaved people (esp women and children) often integrated into the family of their owners.

“Socially and legally dead” dimensions meant that in some places, they enjoyed few legal protections and could be killed while being punished, with impunity.

In other places, including some parts of the U.S., they had a “right to life” and masters could be punished for killing them.

Treatment of Enslaved People before 1500

Old Testament law had rules for the enslavement of Hebrews and non-Hebrews.

Rise of Christianity and Islam created a religious rational for slavery: that the slave was a non-believer, a pagan, or an infidel and was not protected by the law of God, enjoyed no protections and could be enslaved.

According to Paul Finkelman, “so many Slavic people from eastern Europe were enslaved that the term slave evolved from the word Slav.”

Spread of Christianity across Europe limited slavery there but Europeans purchased slaves and enslaved prisoners of war.

Religious Rationales for Slavery

In the Americas, many Anglo-American masters believed that spreading the gospel to their slaves would force them to manumit them so many opposed the teaching and converting of their slaves.

Colonial legislatures passed laws that prohibited masters from freeing slaves on the basis of their conversion to Christianity.

Over time, Europeans and European Americans used Christianity to defend slavery.They argued that slavery and Christianity

“civilize” Africans and their descendants.

Religious Rationales for Slavery

Russian SerfdomPeople are tied to the landLived on ancestral landFamilies remained intactThe same race as masters

or vassalsMasters rarely interfered

in lives of serfsEnjoyed more social

autonomyCultural practices remain

intact

People treated as chattelKidnapped & transported

from landFamilies ripped apartSocial deathDifferent race from masterA lot of master

interferenceEnjoyed less autonomyCultural practices severed

or diluted

Unfree Labor Comparison

American Slavery

Slavery was not a permanent position in other places, as it became in the Americas.

Slavery was not hereditary in other places—it was not inherited or passed down to subsequent generations, as it became in the Americas.

Slavery was not based upon race, as it became in the Americas.

Slavery in the Americas v. Earlier Times

The Trade in Africans across the Atlantic system lasted from the mid 1440s until slavery ended in the Western Hemisphere when Brazil abolished slavery in 1888. See the chronology in Goodheart.

The system took on what scholars have called a triangular (and sometimes rectangular character).

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Began w/ the Portuguese & Spanish in 1400s. It was expanded by the Dutch, English, &

French in the 1600s and 1700s.“Americans” aka English settlers in BCNA,

become active in the late 1700s-early 1800s.The trade ends in the late 1800s, as slavery

ends in the Americas.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Just as historians, statisticians, and economists have gone from guessing about the slave trade, it is important for students of slavery to use these research findings to educate themselves about some general issues regarding the slave trade. These include:How many Africans were enslaved?Where did they come from?Where did they go?How many came to the U.S.?

The Weight of Numbers

Scholars have gone from guessing or assuming they know how many Africans were taken from the African continent toward exploring the shipping logs, insurance claims, and other historical records on both sides of the Atlantic.

Their research has revealed some general estimates of 9-14 million taken. However, this figure does not include the people who died either while they were being captured or marched to the coast nor those who were killed in the wars activated by the slave trade.

See the Transatlantic Slave Trade Voyage Database .

Weight of Numbers

Slavery, as Orlando Patterson, Ira Berlin, Peter Kolchin, Eugene Genovese, and others note, is a very old institution. It existed in the ancient world and in different parts of the pre-modern and modern world. Slavery is illegal today in many places throughout the world. So, where the institution still exists (sexual trafficking, exploitation of migrant workers, and in Mauritania), it operates differently (covertly) than it did when it was legal.

Slavery in the World

Slavery existed on the African continent long before the Europeans arrived and it continued after Europeans left.

Africans regularly traded in slaves either for their own personal servants or selling people who were shipped north to the Mediterranean region.

However, it is important to recognize that Africans were no more homogenous than Asians, Europeans, or even Americans (North, Central, and Southern) are today.

African Involvement

Africa is the 2nd largest continent on the globe. Both the continent and its people are very diverse. Moreover, Africans did not think of themselves as “Africans;” they saw themselves by their ethnic group—Ibo, Asante, etc. and their family clan. Indeed, people from Africa today often identify

themselves by nation—Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and then by ethnic group.

So, when “Africans” traded in slaves, they often sold into bondage people from other ethnic groups or people who were their competitors or enemies.

Africans rarely sold into slavery people from their own ethnic group or family clan.

African Involvement

These figures represent the number of people taken.

15th century (1400s) – roughly 50,000 “Africans”

16th century (1500s) – roughly 300,000 “Africans”

17th century (1600s) – roughly 1.5 million “Africans”

18th century (1700s) – roughly 5.8 million “Africans”

19th century (1800s) - 2.4 million “Africans” (most smuggled illegally after international sanctions imposed on the trade)

The Weight of Numbers

Taken from West African Coastal AreaDuring 1400s-1500s, 90% from region1600s, down to 55% from region as other parts

of the continent are tapped as sources for slaves1700s, down to 37% from region1800s, up to 48% from region

Taken from the Bights of Benin1600s-1800s roughly 35% from this region1900s, 25% from region

Taken from Southeastern AfricaRose from 1% in the 1600s to 15% by the 1800s

Temporal & Geographic Points of Origins

40% - Coasts of West Central Africa modern day Angola, Congo, Gabon

35% - Bights of Benin and Biafra modern day Cameroon & Nigeria

10% - Gold Coast modern day Ghana

5% - Windward Coast modern day Ivory Coast & Sierra Leone

5% - Senegambia Gambia, Guinea, & Senegal

5% - Southeastern Africa Mozambique & Tanzania

Geographic Points of Origin

Geographic Points of Origin

40% (4 mil) to Portuguese colony of Brazil;20% (2 mil) to British colonies in the Caribbean

(Jamaica, Barbados);17.5% (1.75 mil) to Spanish colonies on the

mainland and in the Caribbean (Santo Domingo);13.5 % (or 1.35 mil) to French colonies in

Caribbean (Saint-Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe);

2.5 % (or 250,000) to Danish and Dutch Caribbean (Virgin Islands, St. Maarten, Aruba); and

6.5% (or 650,000) to Colonial North America -- including British, French, Dutch, and Spanish areas

Destinations of African Slaves

Destinations of Enslaved Africans

Destination Total Slave Imports

British North America 500,000

Spanish America 2,500,000

British Caribbean 2,000,000

French Caribbean 1,600,000

Dutch Caribbean 500,000

Danish Caribbean 28,000

Brazil 4,000,000

Old World (Europe) 200,000

Estimated Slave Imports, 1451-1870

Source: Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade, 804

Was one part of larger transatlantic system in whichShips left Europe for Africa with European

manufactured goods.Ships left Africa with slaves and African goods

and minerals.Ships left Americas with goods produced.

However, some scholars have argued the Middle Passage should also include the capture, trek to the coast, and the weeks & months spent waiting in the holding pens for ships to arrive and fill up.

The “Middle Passage”

Phrase slave ship

sailors used to

describe the

central leg of

their journal

from Europe to

Africa to

America.

Middle Passage

Kidnapping or Prisoner of WarTrek to coast in cofflesSold to slave traders in coastal areasHolding pens (“factories”) on the coast until

enough to fill shipsBoarding ships Arrival in the AmericasDispersal to homes, farms, plantations, cities,

businesses, factories

Journey of African Captives

The length of the

journey varied by

weather

(hurricanes or

tropical storms),

maritime war,

and point of

origin and

destination.

Slave Ship

Conditions varied widely per supply & demand, weather, and the timing of the trade.

Mortality rates15-20% in early trade—because of a lack of

systematized method for transporting enslaved people without losing many of them to revolt, warfare, storms, illness, or suicide.

5-10% in later trade—because of better treatment to ensure more people survived.

Crew’s treatment—varied by timing of the trade and the European powers doing the transporting.Violence remained part of the process but some people

tried to be more humane than others.Resistance and rebellion of enslaved people occurred

frequently while at sea.

Conditions on Board Ships

The drawing on the next slide was a piece of what some scholars call a piece of anti-slave trade propaganda. The drawing is of the slave ship The Brooks as it was envisioned fully loaded or “tightly packed” with slaves.

Though this image did become used as propaganda, it accurately depicts some but not all slave ships. The extent to which ships would be packed to the limit would depend on the slavers, the cost of slaves, the demands of the Crown, insurance companies, etc.

Conditions on Board

In the earliest parts of the trade, many enslaved people who came to BCNA first landed in the Caribbean. This is because slaveholding took off in the other parts of the Americas before it took off in BCNA. Colonists in BCNA first got slaves from the Caribbean (they were “seasoned” or already trained as slaves and spoke European language).

Beginning in the late 1600s, Americans got enslaved people directly from the African continent. This continued until the U.S. ban on the slave trade went into effect in 1808.

The illegal importation of slaves continued, resulting in tens of thousands of enslaved Africans being smuggled into the U.S.

Seasoning

Scholarly debate:Moral reasons

In the late 1700s, some Englishmen became very concerned about the horrid conditions of the slave trade and this led them and their North American counterparts to push for its abolition.

The image on the next side depicts a case involving the killing of an enslaved African woman that some British activists used to argue for abolishing the slave trade (but not slavery).

Economic reasonsThe British were shifting towards industrial production and

did not need the slave trade. They were also focusing more on colonization.

With a thriving American born slave population and with some slave societies and societies with slaves shifting away from plantation slavery and, in the North, from slavery all together, there is less of a need for a booming slave trade.

End of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The British banned the slave trade in 1807 and the Americans banned it in 1808.

More than 2 million smuggled across the Atlantic to the Americas in the 1800s.Of this, 54,000 come to the U.S. from slavers with

Northeastern U.S. ties.The last documented slave ship to arrive in the

U.S. was The Clothide, which landed in 1859 with 10 enslaved Africans from modern day Benin.

The legal and Illegal trade in Africans continued as long as slavery existed.Slavery ended: U.S.-1865, Puerto Rico-1873, Cuba-

1886, & Brazil-1888.

End of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Africans as Percentage of Total Population in BCNA

Source: Fogel and Engerman’s Time on the Cross, quoted in Darlene Clark Hine, et al eds., African American Odyssey, 69.

Africans Brought as Slaves to British North America

1701-1710

1711-1720

1721-730

1731-1740

1741-1750

1751-1760

1761-1770

1771-1775

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

Number of Enslaved people (thousands)

Source: R.C Simmons, The American Colonies

Whereas there was a precedent for slavery as a type of unfree labor during the settlement of British Colonial North America, the emergence of African chattel slavery here was not predestined.

Unfree labor existed throughout the world.Unfree labor included indentured servitude and slavery

(however, the two are different and were treated and understood as different by people who lived in colonial North America).

Women, men, and children were included in the class of unfree laborers across the world. The systems in which they were denied freedom included slavery, serfdom, and indentured servitude.

Origins of American Slavery

African Slaves imported to North America, 1615-1720

Source: Claiborne Carson, et al eds., African American Lives, 60.

Importation of Slaves to North America, 1676-1780

Source: Claiborne Carson, et al eds., African American Lives, 81.

Unfree labor developed in BCNA in part because colonists in North America followed the quest for wealth and prosperity of their counterparts in the Caribbean and South America.

Unfree labor was needed to clear land, serve households.

Even more unfree labor was needed to cultivate cash crops (those for which there was a great demand and those that produced high wealthy yields) that included tobacco, indigo, rice, sugar and later on—cotton.

Origins of American Slavery

High demand for cheap and unfree labor to build the colonies and create wealth through cultivation of cash crops—namely tobacco, sugar, indigo, rice, etc.

British gain control of the transatlantic slave trade—cost of slaves decreases and more colonists can purchase them.

Decline in the number of English women and men who were willing to sell themselves into servitude—increases the demand for slaves.

Economic and Demographic Factors & Slavery

Though the number of available English indentured servants declines (for a variety of reasons—war, horrible conditions in North America, greater reliance on African slavery throughout the Americas), the demand for unfree labor is insatiable.

Americans cannot enslave English men and women for life because of English law.

Native Americans are enslaved in some areas but their deaths from disease and war as well as their ability to wage war against colonists makes them less likely to be enslaved in all but a few places.

Africans are already being enslaved in large numbers in Africa, the Caribbean, and in South America. This process began in the early 1500s, long before settlement in BCNA.

Economic and Demographic Factors & Slavery

Though indentured servitude and slavery are two types of unfree labor, they were different in BCNA and should be treated and understood as such.

Indentured servitudeA fixed term of (mostly) voluntary service,

some rights, promised wages and land on end of contract, not based on race, not passed on to children.

SlaveryLifelong involuntary service, severely

constrained rights, no promised wages, status passed on through mothers, based on African heritage.

Indentured Servitude v. Slavery in BCNA

Wealthy colonists in BCNA originally had a need for cheap and unfree labor.

They preferred indentured servants from England but increasingly they shifted toward legalized African, lifelong, hereditary chattel slavery.

The historian Peter Wood has called this shift a “terrible transformation” and others have called it the “downward spiral.”

This shift was very slow and as Berlin, Fogel, and Kolchin note, it took more than a century for this to occur. Indeed, as Berlin notes, the first black Atlantic Creoles are recorded as being in Florida as early as the early 1500s. However, the shift toward full African chattel slavery doesn’t occur until the late 1600s.

The “Terrible Transformation”

Growth of Slave Pop in British America, 1710-1770

Years New England

Mid-Atlantic

South British West Indies

Total % of African Slaves in BWI

1710 2,600 6,200 29,000 148,000 185,000 79.6%

1730 6,100 11,700 79,200 221,000 318,000 69.5%

1750 11,000 20,700 210,400 295,000 537,100 55.5%

1770 15,400 34,900 406,800 434,000 891,100 48.7%

Source: Claiborne Carson, et al eds., African American Lives, 78.

Percentage of African-born Slaves in NA colonies, 1620-1780

Source: Claiborne Carson, et al eds., African American Lives, 91.

Before that shift occurred, wealthy (and soon to be wealthy) colonists relied on unfree labor—primarily indentured servants and some slaves—and a number of colonists also worked themselves.

Slavery existed during this period, roughly from the 1500s through the 1690s, but it was only a small part of the economy, which is why Berlin describes early colonial society as the “charter generations.”

During this period, most colonies are what Berlin calls “societies with slaves” or what the historian Philip Morgan calls “infant slave societies.”

Charter Generations

Slavery was only a part of the economy, not the driving force;

Unfree labor force was mixed—black, white, and Native American—and consisted of indentured servants & slaves;

Slaves of African descent were a mix of “seasoned” slaves from the Caribbean or “saltwater” slaves directly from the African continent;

Race relations were flexible—blacks, whites, and Native Americans co-exist, work alongside each other, fraternize socially, sexually, politically, legally, etc.;

Acculturation or exchange of cultural practices, beliefs, and identities re: race, religion, language, culture very common.

Charter Generations Markers

Paths to freedom DID exist and were easily negotiated—unfree laborers, regardless of their racial background, weren’t subjected to unfree status for life; and

Unfree laborers, again irrespective of their racial status, couldGain their freedom and then

Become valued members of society, Use courts, Buy land, Serve in the military, Buy slaves, Participate in social and political system

This starts to change by the mid 1600s.

Charter Generations Markers

Slavery in Early Virginia1607 Jamestown founded

1617 Tobacco planted

1619 First Ship of “Atlantic Creoles” arrives in the colony

1623 William Tucker, born in Jamestown, becomes the first African American child born in the English colonies

1639 Virginia legislature enacts a law that authorizes all adult males to carry arms, except black males, (signaling the beginnings of racial distinction in law)

1642 Virginia passes fugitive slave law to penalize those who aid runaways

1649 Virginia’s black population reaches 300

1657 Virginia law establishes a colonial militia to hunt runaway slaves (signaling the increasing importance of African slavery to the colony)

1658 To encourage slave trade, Virginia lowers import duties for merchants carrying enslaved Africans to the colony

1661 Virginia legislature formally recognizes slavery

Source: James Ciment, ed., Atlas of African- American History, 37

Year

Crime Offender Punishment

1630 Having sex w/a black servant

White servant Whipped for “defiling his body by lying with a Negro”

1640 Conspiracy to escape 4 white servant, 1 black servant

White servants are sentenced to extra service; black servant is whipped, branded, and shackled for 1 year

1641 Running away 2 white servant, 1 black servant

An extra year of service for whites, lifetime servitude for black man

1661 Running away in the company of enslaved people

White servant 2 extra years of service

1660s

Maidservant becomes pregnant

White servant 2 extra years of service

1660s

Stealing a hog White servant 1,000 pounds of tobacco or 1 extra year of service

1660s

22 days absent White servant 3 months of extra service and 1 year’s worth of crop

1669 Disobeying master Black slave Toes cut off

1707 Killing a slave White master No penalty

Source: James Ciment, ed., Atlas of African- American History, 37

Early racial distinctions in punishment

Enslavement only happens to people of African descent.

Enslavement is lifelong.Enslavement is hereditary.This is the slavery that Civil War Americans

found themselves living with and fighting over regarding the expansion into the western territories.

The following slides provide a survey of antebellum slavery, which is very different from the earliest part of colonial slavery.

After the Charter Generations

Slave laborUnskilled labor (75%)

Farm & plantation work—cultivating crop

Domestic work in households, personal servants

Skilled labor (25%)Artisans (blacksmiths,

carpenters, seamstresses), sailors, etc.

Rural v. Urban/IndustrialUrban-sawmills, gristmills,

domestics, quarries, fisheries, factories, naval

storesRural-agriculture,

tanneries, saltworks, domestics

Better male-female balance

North American birthsHigher than in Caribbean

Families & extended kinship networks

A/Am culture

Antebellum Southern slave life & labor

New England & Mid-AtlanticDomestics, farm hands, work in tradesMany enslaved people used in urban settings (artisans,

carpenters, shipping industries, etc.)Enslaved people’s quality of life varied by British, French,

or Dutch masters.Groups are smaller, community more difficult to achieve

Nature of work (generally in a home or on a farm) meant that they lived in isolation from other black people.

The rise in African arrivals in the early 1700s results in aRise in families and communities.A greater sense of Africans’ diverse cultures in American

life.

Northern slave life and labor (before it was abolished by state laws in the early years of the republic)

Rural SlaveryMost of these people worked on plantations & farms that

were self-contained units.Their labor can be broken down into:

House Slaves—cooks, maids, personal servants, nannies, butlers, drivers

Field Slaves (75%)—crop cultivation, processing of crops, some skilled work on plantations as butchers, blacksmiths, carpenters Fields slaves’ labor was broken down into:

Gang style labor—on cotton and sugar plantations where they worked under a driver and/or overseer

Task style labor—in areas where they cultivated tobacco and rice. These enslaved people enjoyed more autonomy, general farm work

Some of these people were hired out to work for individuals, businesses, and governments that needed cheap laborers but who could not afford slaves or did not want to own slaves. These were mostly enslaved men with skills in carpentry, fieldwork,

etc.

Rural Slave Labor

Slavery was a highly adaptive institution in that enslaved people could be put to work in virtually in any vocation. Although antebellum slavery was generally a rural institution, there was also

Urban Slavery (6% of enslaved people worked in antebellum southern towns) There were historically large populations of enslaved people in

cities but they declined over the antebellum period—perception of threat caused by autonomy, growing abolition movement.

They worked as servants, artisans, laborers, and shopkeepers. They enjoyed more autonomy than their rural counterparts.

Industrial Slavery There were also large numbers of enslaved people employed in

industrial labor. They worked in tobacco factories, quarries and fisheries; they fell trees; operated sawmills; delivered lumber; manufactured tar & turpentine; worked in chemical factories.

These people enjoyed even more autonomy and could be paid in cash, which might allow them to buy their freedom.

Urban & Industrial Slavery

“Negotiated Relationship”Slavery was always what Ira Berlin called a “negotiated

relationship,” with mutual obligations and duties held by masters and by the people they enslaved.

American masters expected to have absolute authority over the lives of the people but they often had to negotiate to extract the most amount of labor without endangering their lives or livelihoods as well as those of their slaves.

Many enslaved people did not participate in slave revolts because they knew that they could not overthrow the entire institution on their own or command boats to return to Africa.

Nevertheless, it is important to know that they resisted bondage in a variety of ways.

Purpose? Immediate relief, safety-valve. This resistance is also a tool of negotiation to get better treatment.Withholding Labor

Negotiation between masters & slavesCreating Families

Strong, flexible extended kinship networksUnderscoring slaves’ humanity and resistance of chattel status,

of paternalism, etc.Conjure or use herbal medicine or spells to punish master

class.“Play ole massa”-pay ignorant to avoid work or

punishment.Feign illness to avoid work.Commit arson or destroy equipment, crops, animals, etc.Use paternalist ideology to gain more food, privileges,

prevent the sale of loved ones, etc.

Everyday Slave Resistance

Purpose? Immediate relief, safety-valve.Theft

Of time, money, food, or goods for personal use or to sell on the slaves’ economy.

To alleviate hunger and deprivation, to defiantly take back goods, food, or money that their unpaid labor had created or purchased.

Running Away—relief, visit kin, seek freedomMurder of master, mistress, overseer, masters’ children

—relief from or retaliation for abusive treatment.Commit suicide, infanticide, abortion—to escape the

horrors of slavery or to spare loved ones the horrors.Everyday resistance is the most common form of

resistance in U.S. because enslaved Americans were outnumbered and outgunned.

Everyday Slave Resistance

Rebellion—the highest form of resistance.Purpose? Throw off the shackles of slavery &

use violence--the weapon of the master class--if necessary to achieve it.

Rebellions are rare in BCNA because of the larger white population, controls of population, resident masters, militia, bans on arming blacks (in comparison to the Caribbean).

The very possibility of them terrified the master class and all white Americans.

Extraordinary Slave Resistance

Enslaved Americans “always faced hopeless odds” [of overthrowing slavery] and they “should not have to answer for their failure to mount more frequent and effective revolts; they should be honored for having [resisted] at all under the most discouraging circumstances.”

Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 594

1663 Enslaved Virginians join white servants in a planned revolt. Plot discovered, black conspirators beheaded & their heads displayed in village square.

1712 21 enslaved people executed in New York City for their alleged role in an uprising.

1739 50-100 enslaved people at Stono, SC, flee south with stolen arms heading toward Spanish Florida. They kill whites who interfere, are captured and executed.

1741 31 enslaved people are tried on sketchy evidence for burning down several NYC buildings and executed.

1741 Enslaved Bostonians caught trying to escape to Florida in a stolen boat.

1800 Enslaved man Gabriel plans an attack on Richmond. Most enslaved people in the region know about the plan, someone informs authorities, Gabriel and several conspirators are tried and executed.

1811 Enslaved people in Orleans Territory engage in the largest revolt (re: participants). They kill 2 white men before officials put down the revolt. They late try and execute participants.

1822 Denmark Vesey, a free black man, plots to attack Charleston, SC. When plot is discovered, Vesey and more than 40 others are executed.

1831 Nat Turner, an enslaved Virginian, leads a group of conspirators to strike at slaveholders in Southampton County. Turner et al kill more than 60 whites before the rebellion is put down. Whites retaliate by killing more than 100 blacks.

Slave UprisingsSource: James Ciment, ed., Atlas of African- American History, 65

Free & Enslaved Black People, 1820-1860

Claiborne Carson, et al eds., African American Lives, 191).

Anne Bailey, African Voices of the Atlantic Slave TradeVincent Caretta, Equiano: The African (author discovers new

evidence that forces us to rethink Olaudah Equiano)Philip D. Curtin, Atlantic Slave Trade (Curtin was one of the

first to attempt a “headcount”)Basil Davidson, The African Slave TradeAdam Hochschild, Bury the Chains (study of the campaign to

end the trade)Herbert Klein, The Atlantic Slave TradeMarcus Rediker, Slave Ship: A Human History (excellent

analysis of the ships, the slaves, the crews, and captives)Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery (great study on the

cultures of African captives)Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade

Sources and Recommended Reading

Ira Berlin et al eds., Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation; Families & Freedom; Free at Last: A Documentary History

David Blight, Race & Reunion & American Oracle; W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction; Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering & Mothers of Invention; Don Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case; Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial; Free Soil, Free Labor and Free Men; & Forever

Free; Gary Gallagher, The Union War & The Confederate War; Henry Louis Gates, Lincoln, Race & Slavery; Peter Kolchin, American Slavery; Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long; Chandra Manning, What This Cruel War was Over; Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning; James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom; Allen Ward, The Slaves’ War.

Sources/Recommended Reading

Slave Coffle: http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/150 Abolition of the Slave Trade in England:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/the-transatlantic-slave-trade-and-the-civil-war/

Slave Ship Description: http://www.charactercincinnati.org/faith/qualities/diligence/wilberforce%20and%20friends.htm

Triangular Trade Map: http://wwnorton.com/college/english/naal8/section/volA/maps.aspx

Rice and Indigo Plantation: http://www.grandstrandmga.com/OldRiceIndigoPlantations2.html

Transatlantic Slave Trade: http://wwnorton.com/college/english/naal8/section/volA/maps.aspx

Interior of Slave Ship: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/images/1inte0131b.jpg

Images Accessed June 2012

The Sectional CrisesWhy A Lincoln Presidency Meant WarConfederate Ascendancy

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