Slaves in IndustryEssay Preview: Slaves in IndustryReport this essaySlaves in IndustryAmerican history in the 19th century revolved around the controversy of slavery. As early as 1784, there were blacks living, as free men in the north, but the south grew far more limited to their slavery-run economy. These free and enslaved blacks had many complaints, limitations, successes, and opportunities in this shaky era of our nations past. The people and the events of the 1800s would change America forever.
The first Africans to land on American soil arrived in Virginia in 1619. In Europe, the Portuguese and the Dutch had already been dealing in the African slave trade, traveling back and forth across the Atlantic for over half a century. Shortly afterward the French and the British took over this trade industry. America was growing and was in need of cheap labor for economic, geographic, social and agricultural reasons, especially in the southern states. In the south, the climate and soil was very helpful to farming and the plantation owners needed a great number of men to work the land consequently making it the majority importer of slaves. Between 1700 and 1810, the slave traders had carried close to 7 million Africans to America to fulfill the requirements of these tasks. The high demand of the slave trade industry would change African tribes and cultures significantly. In America, these captives would develop new cultures and lifestyles of their own. After our country won its independence, our nation would endeavor to find a new form of self- government; the northern states had conflicting views on the commerce and ownership of slaves while the southern states endorsed slavery. Since the turn of the 19th century, the morality issue of the slave industry had become very controversial.
In 1784, Massachusetts became the first state to abolish slavery, therefore making it illegal to own or trade slaves. Twenty years later, every state north of Delaware would ratify similar laws. Some laws consisted of a gradual termination of slavery promising eventual freedom to blacks and their children. In the south, there were some plantation owners who valued their slaves and set them up on a task system. “The whole intent of a task system was to encourage slaves to accomplish a set amount of work in a given time and then to work beyond that minimum point in order to earn compensation for themselves. Employers stood ready to pay industrial slaves whenever they exceeded their assigned tasks. They often were allowed to raise pigs, calves, chickens or foodstuffs on plots of land provided by their employers. The slaves earnings and their expenditures were recorded in ledgers kept by their employers, and these “Negro Books”, as the volumes were generally labeled, constitute some of the most valuable documentary evidence we have concerning slavery in the Old South. Extraordinary value of these overwork ledgers derives from the insight they provide into slave life.” (University Publications of America, 1997)
However, there were some dishonest plantation owners who would do whatever they needed to do in order to maintain a profitable business. For them the slave industry was proving to be a profitable business for both them as well as the slave traders. Often times slave auctions of the south made the life of a slave brutal. A famous quote from a slave once read, “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.”(1999-2005). The slaves had no real chance of a lasting marriage or the formation of a family. If it would be beneficial to the slave owners of the south, they would separate husbands from their wives and children from their parents. Being sold at an auction was a real possibility due to the rapid reproduction of slaves and the overpopulation of plantations. Between 1790 and 1820 plantation owners relocated over 250,000 slaves mainly to the cotton belt in the westward states of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. In 1809, Congress would pass laws ending the Atlantic Slave Trade, forcing further westward expansion of enslaved African-Americans.
While the slaves were being shifted around in the south the free black population rose from eight percent to thirteen percent of the African-American population. Most of the free blacks lived in the northern states where they had much success setting up black schools, churches, and communities. This provided education to free blacks and would prove to be helpful in the Civil War. “Lieutenant Colonel Alexander T. Augusta was one of eight black surgeons enlisted in the Union Army.” (1997-2005). Although blacks were free in the north, they still faced many limitations and they often worked the most tedious jobs. Free blacks were not allowed to have a U.S. Passport, work for the government; claim public lands, or sit next to white people in church. They were forbidden to vote in most states and could not testify against whites. Vermont and Maine were the only states that gave blacks the right to vote and Massachusetts was the only state where free blacks could testify against whites.
The majority of free blacks in the south lived in the upper southern states of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. In Delaware the free blacks outnumbered the enslaved blacks three to one. Even though these blacks were free men they were normally denied a jury trial. These free blacks were always in danger of being forced back into slavery. Free blacks had to carry manumission documents to prove that they were indeed free men. “Even with valid papers free African-Americans in the South had to be careful; kidnapping and sale were constant threats.” (Henretta, 2002, p 267). Free African-Americans knew as long as slavery existed their freedom was never totally secure. Free blacks were constantly battling for the emancipation of enslaved blacks. Both free blacks and enslaved blacks saw themselves united as one in the fight against slavery, and free blacks stood as hope for the enslaved men and women of the south. As the nineteenth century wore on slavery kept becoming more and more controversial.
Henry Clay and President James Monroe created the American Colonization Society in 1817. They agreed slavery must come to an end, as did the free blacks in America. Their idea was to gradually emancipate slaves back to Africa. “They regarded the 250,000 free blacks in the northern states as notoriously ignorant, degraded and miserable, mentally diseased, and broken spirited. Hoping to create a white mans country what they wanted was African removal.” (Henretta, 2002, p353). The American Colonization Society proved to be unsuccessful after losing support from the white and black population. The American Colonization Society deported around six thousand African-Americans back to their native homeland in Africa. The Society made a substantial number of
dignified descendants, with each group being referred to as a descendent of a separate tribe. Their goal being to remove every other race and belief, as well as its offspring, from the country. Ὰ(Charles W. Kuyper, ‘The New World Colonizing Society.’ Journal of the Society of the American Colonized in 1822, p33). The Society’s focus would therefore be on establishing a “white land power” (to use a rather literal phrase), a rule which would remove the African-American influence from the South by introducing “native” Africans. They wanted whites to be the “colors of choice,” with the African white people acting as their “colors.” But their success proved far less than the success of a mere “white” rule, as it would be hard to eradicate the racial diversity of the American South, or of any racial group. But despite this, their success in a way that could be described as revolutionary, provided the African American people were freed from a white control. American abolitionists saw both a major and minor failure in their cause. They believed that the black population should be given equal opportunities to succeed, and, indeed, the white race and its representatives should also benefit from all the opportunity they received throughout history. But while they saw both a huge and minor failure, most leaders were still willing to try and impose the “white land power” on the native groups they had created. This would mean the abolitionists would be forced directly to impose a “no slavery” law in the southern states. When that was not possible, the “White” power would be placed in place, in the name of “white supremacy.” †(Kuyper, ‘The White Land Power: The Politics of Black Power,’ University of Kentucky Press, 1995, p5). The white power movement also tried in 1821 to establish a federal government for the African Americans that were to be in possession of the land. But that legislation was opposed by the white, not the black inhabitants of the South, who saw it as an extension of the slave trade. African Americans refused that plan because whites were more likely to “discredit” their own members and keep them in servitude than to give or sell them. These two problems were the problems with the plan, so that they failed. ‡(Sutherland, ‘History of the White Power Movement,’ University of Michigan Press, 2003, p32). The “white” population then would be freed from the slave system and the African Americans would be put under the control of a white man. From a black perspective, even the abolitionists were convinced that African Americans would not be subject to involuntary servitude. However, as the abolitionist movement progressed, the white abolitionists found that blacks were willing to obey their white supremacy by becoming their own government. The white abolitionists were able to achieve these gains by imposing a series of economic reforms to create a new middle class and social order. But they were not really able