Slavery

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Slavery
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The Slave trade

• From the 1500s to the 1800s, slave traders sent
  an estimated 10-15 million Africans across the
  Atlantic to the Americas.
• First direct contact between Europeans and West
  Africans occurred in the 1400s between Africans
  and the Portuguese.
• Portuguese traders explored the coast lured by
  the rumor of gold.
• Gradually, Europeans set up trading posts up and
  down the coast and established missionaries to
  convert Africans to Christianity.

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Trade

• European traders established trading posts and
  traded copper and iron for fish, silver, ivory,
  gold and pepper.

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Slavery History

• 1400s - Europeans brought the first Africans to
  Europe
• Demand for slaves increased as settlement in
  America increased.
• First slaves and servants in America were Native
  Americans and indentured servants
• They were used to mine gold and harvest crops
  such as cotton and tobacco but many died.
• The thought was that Africans would be better
  suited for the hot climates of Central America
  and the Caribbean.

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The Atlantic Slave trade

• The height of the slave trade was in the 1700s
  when 60,000 slaves per year were brought to North
  America from Africa
• By the 1600s, a trade network had linked Europe,
  Africa, and North America
• European slave traders relied on local African
  rulers to supply them with slaves. They paid with
  the slaves with Guns and other manufactured
  goods. Armed with the guns, African slave traders
  would attack the villages, taking prisoners.

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Triangle of trade

• Europeans traded Guns and other manufactured
  goods in Africa for slaves
• In North America, the slaves were traded for
  cotton and tobacco.
• In Europe, the cotton and tobacco were traded for
  guns and other manufactured goods.

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The Brookes ca 1783
Cross section of bottom two levels of the
Brookes slave ship which carried approx 450
slaves.
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Length and width view of the Brookes
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Prossers Rebellion

• Summer of 1800 a blacksmith named Gabriel
  Prosser and several other slaves planned a
  rebellion in Richmond
• The plan had them taking over Richmond and win
  freedom
• The rebellion failed and at least 20 of the
  rebels including Prosser were executed

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Slaves as Property

• Slaves were viewed as mere property
• In a bill of sale from 1811, a slave named Eve
  and her child, at 156, are listed right between
  a plow for 1.60 and Eight fancy chairs for
  9.25
• As the demand for slaves rose, so did the prices
  
• A prime field worker between 18-25 years old
  cost about 500.00
• After the initial investment, a slave only cost
  15-60 to support

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Denmark Vesey

• Vesey was a slave who bought is freedom for
  600.00 he won in a street lottery.
• He became a preacher at a local African-American
  Episcopal Church
• He was self-educated and read anti-slavery
  literature and grew increasingly angry at the
  suffering of his fellow African Americans
• He criticized African Americans who would not
  stand up to whites

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Denmark Vesey

• 1822 Vesey decided to take action
• Plotted to seize the city of Charleston
• Intended to raid the arsenal, kill all the white
  residents, free the slaves, and burn the city to
  the ground
• Vesey was betrayed by some of his followers
• The rebellion was thwarted before it began by
  South Carolina militia
• 35 African Americans were hanged, and another 32
  were expelled from South Carolina 5 white men
  received finesand prison terms for aiding rebels

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Turners Rebellion

• In 1831, a 31 year-old African-American preacher
  named Nat Turner planned an uprising in
  southeastern Virginia
• Led up to 70 slaves in raids of white families
• 57 white people were killed in raids on 4
  plantations
• Eventually militia captured most of the rebels
  including Turner, who were hanged
• At the hanging, frightened and angry whites
  rioted and slaughtered about 100
  African-Americans who had nothing to do with the
  revolt.

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White Southerners alarmed

• Slave revolts were a white southerners nightmare
• In many communities, African-Americans often
  outnumbered whites
• Virginia actually considered outlawing slavery
  but instead (like many other southern states)
  tightened its restrictions on slaves
• Virginia and North Carolina passed laws
  forbidding teaching enslaved people to read Some
  states prevented African Americans from moving
  about or meeting

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Harriet Beecher Stowe

• 1852 publishes the novel Uncle Toms Cabin
• Story set in pre-Civil War South about a slave
  who escapes a plantation when her child is about
  to be sold
• She finds help along the underground railroad.
• By contrast, another slave, Uncle Tom is sold
  down the river and killed by a brutal master,
  Simon Legree.

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Uncle Toms Cabin

• Stowe used the Stark contrast between kind slave
  and brutal master to show the negative effects of
  slavery
• Showed that slavery was against the very beliefs
  that notherners cherished an importance of women
  and the happy family. This comes to a tragic end
  when Uncle Tom is sold to Simon Legree
• Legree is the contrast to Northern ideals an
  anti-christian, heavy drinking brute who only
  cares about satisfying his desires and his greed.
  He brutalizes women and beats uncle Tom to death
  with a whip.

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Uncle Toms Cabin

• Stow also showed images of Northern women
  influencing their husbands to do whats right.
• One such woman in Ohio convinces her husband who
  is a senator to permit escaped slaves to continue
  their journey to Canada

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Impact of Uncle Toms Cabin

• Stowes novel had a similar impact in her time as
  Thomas Paines common sense had in his.
• Presented northern readers with a vivid sense of
  what slavery was like even if it was exaggerated.
  
• Many northerners were convinced that slavery
  would be the ruin of the US
• They were worried about the impact of slavery on
  Northern Whites as they were afraid of having a
  land of Simon Legrees

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Southern Reaction

• Many Southerners were outraged by the portrayal
  of southerners (slave owners) in Uncle Toms
  Cabin
• Claimed that most planters took an interest in
  their enslaved people, providing them with the
  basic necessities of life.
• Northern industrialists, according to Southerners
  took no personal interest in industrial workers
• Wages were meager and conditions poor. Many
  southerners believed Northerners were motivated
  purely by profit.
• Southerners were not about to let northerners
  tell them how to live.