Slavery existed in the United States from 1619 until 1865, primarily in the Southern states. By 1860 there were nearly 4 million slaves out of a total US population of 12 million, most held by large plantation owners. Slaves endured cruel treatment and inhumane conditions, and an internal slave trade developed that forcibly relocated over 1 million slaves for economic reasons. Abolitionist movements led by figures like Douglass and Beecher Stowe grew in the Northern states, increasing sectional tensions, while the Dred Scott decision of 1857 upheld slavery. The system was finally abolished after the Union victory in the Civil War.

1. SLAVERY IN THE
UNITED STATES

2. INTRODUCTION
The history of slavery in the United States (1619-1865)
began after the English Colonists first settled in Virginia and
lasted until the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S
Constitution.
From about the 1640s until 1865, people
of African descent were legally enslaved
within the boundaries of the country.
They were held devastatingly by whites,
but also by some Native Americans and
free black people. This happened especially in
the Southern region (95% of slaves).
According to the 1860 U.S. census, nearly 4 million slaves were held out of
a total population of just over 12 million, in the 15 states in which slavery
was legal.

3. INTRODUCTION
The majority of slaves were held by planters, those who held 20
or more slaves. These planters achieved wealth, social and
political power.
The wealth of the U.S. in the first
half of the 19th century was greatly
enhanced bythe exploitation of labor
of
African Americans
However, with the Union victory in the Civil War, the slave labor system was
abolished in the South. Industrialists from northern states dominated
many aspects, including social and some of political affairs.
The planter class of the South lost power temporarily.

4. INTRODUCTION
Approximately 12 million black Africans were shipped
to AMERICA from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
Of these, 5.4% (645,000) were brought to what is
now the United States.
Videos About the
History of
Slavery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZl8YtCfObI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clldd6sGpCI&feature=related

5. COLONIAL AMERICA
The first record of African
slavery in Colonial America
occurred in 1619. A Dutch ship,
the White Lion, had captured 20
enslaved Africans in a battle
with a Spanish ship bound for
Mexico.
The Dutch ship had been damaged by the battle,
and the colony was suffering of high mortality
rates, disease and malnutrition. Since the colony
needed able-bodied workers, and the ship was
in need of repairs and supplies, human cargo
was traded for food and services.

6. COLONIAL AMERICA
The Virginia Slave codes of 1705
made clear the status of slaves.
During the British colonial
period, every colony had
slavery. Those in the north were
primarily house servants.
In South Carolina in 1720 about 65% of the population consisted of slaves.
They worked on farms and plantations growing indigo, rice, tobacco, and
cotton. They were also used by rich farmers and plantation owners for
commercial export operations.

7. COLONIAL AMERICA
Some of the British colonies
attempted to abolish the
international slave trade, fearing
that the importation of new
Africans would be disruptive.
Rhode Island forbade the import of slaves in 1774. All of the states except
Georgia had banned or limited the African slave trade by 1786; Georgia did
so in 1798, although some of these laws were later repealed.

8. SLAVERY FROM 1776-1850
SECOND MIDDLE PASSAGE
This was the name of the "central event” in the life of a slave between the
American Revolution and the Civil War.
The “Second middle passage” consisted of breaking up existing slave families
and forcing them to relocate far from everyone and everything they knew.
They lived in fear that they or their families would be involuntarily moved,
which traumatized them significantly.
It is estimated that 1,000,000
slaves moved west between 1790
and 1860.

9. SLAVERY FROM 1776-1850
SECOND MIDDLE PASSAGE
The internal slave trade became the largest enterprise in the South outside
the plantation itself, and probably the most advanced in its employment of
modern transportation, finance, and publicity.
The Second Middle Passage was extraordinarily lonely, debilitating, and
dispiriting. An observer characterized a southern march of slaves as
"a procession of men, women, and children resembling that of a funeral."
Slave men and women died on the march, and were even sold and resold.
Murder and chaos were extremely common, which was why the men were
chained tightly and guarded closely.

10. SLAVERY FROM 1776-1850
SECOND MIDDLE PASSAGE
A combination of inadequate nutrition, bad water, and exhaustion from
both the journey and the work weakened the newly arrived slaves
and produced casualties.
The death rate was such that, in the first few years of hewing a plantation
out of the wilderness, some planters preferred whenever possible to use
rented slaves rather than their own
Many of the slaves were new to cotton fields and
unaccustomed to the "sunrise-to-sunset labor"
required by their new life. They were
driven much harder than when they were
involved in growing tobacco or
Wheat.

11. SLAVERY FROM 1776-1850
Between 1810 and 1830 the number of slaves
increased from under 10,000 to over 42,000.
New Orleans became nationally important as a
slave port, and by the 1840s had the largest
slave market in the country.

12. SLAVERY FROM 1776-1850
IMPORTANT FACTS
With the high mortality rate, to replace losses, plantation owners encouraged
the slaves to have children.
Child-bearing started around the age of thirteen, and by twenty the women
slaves would be expected to have four or five children.
To encourage child-bearing some population owners
promised women slaves their freedom after they had
produced fifteen children.
The law provided slaves with no protection at all
from
their masters. The punishments used against slaves
included the use of the whip.
Sometimes slave-owners preferred mutilating and
branding their slaves.

13. SLAVERY FROM 1776-1850
TESTIMONY OF A SLAVE
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
(1845)
“The time came when I must go to work on the plantation. I was less
than seven years old. On the plantation of Colonel Lloyd I was left to
the tender mercies of Aunt Katy, a woman slave who, ill-tempered and
cruel, was often guilty of starving me and the other children. One day
I had offended Aunt Katy and she adopted her usual mode of publishing
me; namely, making me go all day without food. Sundown came, but no bread.
I was too hungry to sleep, when who but my own dear mother should
come in. She read Aunt Katy a lecture which was never forgotten. That night
I learned as I had never learned before, that I was not only a child,
but somebody's child. My mother had walked twelve miles to see me,
and had the same distance to travel over before the morning sunrise.
I do not remember seeing her again”.

14. TREATMENT OF SLAVES
- Harsh and inhumane: only the threat of violence could force gangs of field
hands to work from dawn to dusk “with the discipline of a regular trained army”.
- Floggings: penalty for inefficient labor, disorderly conduct, or refusal to accept
the authority of a superior.
- Slaves and free blacks were regulated by
the Black Codes.
Physical abuse, murder, constant risk of
losing members of their families.
Murdering owners, burning farms, killing
horses, staging work slowdowns.

15. TREATMENT OF SLAVES
- Slaves: legal property of their owners.
- Enslaved black women: raped by their
owners. Children who resulted from such SLAVES
rapes were slaves as well.
- Family: basic unit of social organization
Fed, clothed, housed, and
provided medical care in
the most minimal manner.
- Slaves: considered legal NON-persons,
except if they committed crimes. Small bonuses during
Christmas season.
They "are rational beings, they are capable
of committing crimes; and in reference to acts which Keep earnings and
are crimes, are regarded as persons. Because they are gambling profits.
slaves, they are incapable of performing civil acts, and,
in reference to all such, they are things, not persons”.
(Alabama court)

17. SLAVERY & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
- Women and men had equal labor-intensive work.
Labor-intensive jobs
for WOMEN
Cooking for the owner’s
household as well as the
slaves themselves.
Sewing, midwifery, pruning
fields.
- 1837: Antislavery Convention of American Women (NY)
- 1848: launch of the women’s rights movement at Seneca Falls, NY

18. ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
- 1750: widespread sentiment during the American
Revolution that slavery was a social evil.
- The Massachussetts Constitution of 1780 declared
all men “born free and equal”.
- Strong support for slavery among white
Southerners, who profited greatly from the system:
refer to slavery as the “peculiar institution”.
Declared
slavery to be a
Religious movement personal sin
led by William Lloyd Factor in causing
Garrison the American
1830 Civil War.

19. ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
Influential leaders of the abolitionist movement:
• William Lloyd Garrison

20. ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
Influential leaders of the abolitionist movement:
• Harriet Beecher Stowe

21. ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
Influential leaders of the abolitionist movement:
• Frederick Douglass

22. ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT
Influential leaders of the abolitionist movement:
• Harriet Tubman

23. RISING TENSIONS
- Economic value of plantation slavery:
magnified in 1793 with the invention of the
cotton gin (Eli Whitney).
- Just as demand for slaves was increasing,
supply was restricted.
Any new slaves would have to
US Constitution be descendants of ones who
(1787) were currently in the US.
Slavery became
more or less self-
sustaining
Prevented Congress to
1808: Congress acted
banned importation of
to ban further imports
slaves until 1808.

24. Religious institutions
North and South grew further apart in 1845 when the Baptist
Church and other denominations split into Northern and Southern
organizations.
Distribution of Slaves
Chart 1
Chart 2

25. Distribution of slaves in 1820
Census # Free Total % free Total US % black
# Slaves
Year blacks black blacks population of total
1790 697,681 59,527 757,208 7.9% 3,929,214 19%
1800 893,602 108,435 1,002,037 10.8% 5,308,483 19%
1810 1,191,362 186,446 1,377,808 13.5% 7,239,881 19%
1820 1,538,022 233,634 1,771,656 13.2% 9,638,453 18%
1830 2,009,043 319,599 2,328,642 13.7% 12,860,702 18%
1840 2,487,355 386,293 2,873,648 13.4% 17,063,353 17%
1850 3,204,313 434,495 3,638,808 11.9% 23,191,876 16%
1860 3,953,760 488,070 4,441,830 11.0% 31,443,321 14%
1870 0 4,880,009 4,880,009 100% 38,558,371 13%
Source: http://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0056/tab01.xls

26. Total slave population in US by state
Total Slave Population in US 1790 -1860, by State [40]
Census
1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850
Year
All States 694,207 887,612 1,130,781 1,529,012 1,987,428 2,482,798 3,200,600
Alabama - - - 47,449 117,549 253,532 342,844
Arkansas - - - - 4,576 19,935 47,100
California - - - - - - -
Connecticut 2,648 951 310 97 25 54 -
Delaware 8,887 6,153 4,177 4,509 3,292 2,605 2,290
Florida - - - - - 25,717 39,310
Georgia 29,264 59,699 105,218 149,656 217,531 280,944 381,682
Illinois - - - 917 747 331 -
Indiana - - - 190 3 3 -
Iowa - - - - - 16 -
Kansas - - - - - - -
Kentucky 12,430 40,343 80,561 126,732 165,213 182,258 210,981
Louisiana - - - 69,064 109,588 168,452 244,809
Maine - - - - 2 - -
Maryland 103,036 105,635 111,502 107,398 102,994 89,737 90,368
Massachusetts - - - - 1 - -
Michigan - - - - 32 - -
Minnesota - - - - - - -
Mississippi - - - 32,814 65,659 195,211 309,878
Missouri - - - 10,222 25,096 58,240 87,422
Nebraska - - - - - - -
Nevada - - - - - - -
New
157 8 - - 3 1 -
Hampshire
New Jersey 11,423 12,422 10,851 7,557 2,254 674 236
New York 21,193 20,613 15,017 10,088 75 4 -
North Carolina 100,783 133,296 168,824 205,017 245,601 245,817 288,548
Ohio - - - - 6 3 -

27. Nat Turner, anti-literacy laws
In 1831, a bloody slave rebellion took place in Southampton
County, Virginia. A slave named Nat Turner who was able to read and
write and had "visions", led what became known as Nat Turner's
Rebellion or the Southampton Insurrection
Nat Turner was hanged and skinned. His fellow freedom
fighters were also hanged.
Virginia law against educating slaves, free blacks and children
of whites and blacks.
Dred Scott
Dred Scott was a 62-year-old slave who sued for his freedom
after the death of his owner on the ground that he had lived in a
territory where slavery was forbidden in the northern part of the
Louisiana Purchase, from which slavery was excluded under the
terms of the Missouri Compromise.

28. Dred Scott
Ten years later in a sweeping decision that set the United
States on course for Civil War, the Supreme Court denied Scott his
freedom.
The 1857 Dred Scott decision, decided 6-3, held that a slave
did not become free when taken into a free state; Congress could not
bar slavery from a territory, and blacks could not be citizens.
The decision enraged abolitionists and encouraged slave
owners, helping to push the country towards civil war.
1860 Presidential Elections
Dred Scott was a 62-year-old slave who sued for his freedom
after the death of his owner on the ground that he had lived in a
territory where slavery was forbidden in the northern part of the
Louisiana Purchase, from which slavery was excluded under the
terms of the Missouri Compromise.

29. 1860 Presidential Elections
Lincoln, the Republican, won with a plurality of popular votes
and a majority of electoral votes. Lincoln, however, did not appear on
the ballots of ten southern states: thus his election necessarily split
the nation along sectional lines.
They also argued that banning slavery in new states would
upset what they saw as a delicate balance of free states and slave
states.
The combination of these factors led the South to secede from
the Union, and thus began the American Civil War.
War and Emancipation
The consequent American Civil War, beginning in 1861, led
to the end of chattel slavery in America. Not long after the war broke
out, through a legal maneuver credited to Union General Benjamin F.
Butler, a lawyer by profession, slaves who came into Union
"possession" were considered "contraband of war".

30. War and Emancipation
Many of the "contrabands" joined the Union Army as workers
or troops, forming entire regiments of the U.S. Colored Troops
(USCT).
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 was a
powerful move that promised freedom for slaves in the Confederacy
as soon as the Union armies reached them, and authorized the
enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army.
Emancipation as a reality came to the remaining southern
slaves after the surrender of all Confederate troops in spring 1865.
There still were over 250,000 slaves in Texas. Word did not
reach Texas about the collapse of the Confederacy until June 19,
1865.
Juneteenth

31. Sharecropping
An 1867 federal law prohibited a descendant form of slavery
known as sharecropping or debt bondage, which still existed in the
New Mexico Territory as a legacy of Spanish imperial rule.
Educational Issues
The anti-literacy laws after 1832 undoubtedly contributed
greatly to the widespread illiteracy facing the freedmen and other
African Americans after the Civil War and Emancipation 35 years
later.
Consequently, many religious organizations, former Union
Army officers and soldiers, and wealthy philanthropists were inspired
to create and fund educational efforts specifically for the betterment
of African Americans in the South.

32. Apologies
On February 24, 2007 the Virginia General Assembly passed
House Joint Resolution Number 728 acknowledging "with profound
regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of
Native Americans, and call for reconciliation among all Virginians."

33. Arguments used to justify slavery
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter 1820:
“We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor
safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self preservation in the
other”
Robert E. Lee in 1856: “ think it is a greater evil to the white than to
the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of
the latter, my sympathies are more engaged for the former”.

34. Slavery as a “positive good”.
• In a famous speech in the senate in 1837,John C. Calhoun, declared
that slavery was instead of an evil- a positive good”.
Enslavement of Native Americans
• During the 17th century, the enslavement of Native Americans by
Europeans was common.
• Allan Gallay estimates that from
1670-171, British slave traders sold
between 24,000 and 51,000 of Native
Americans from what is now the
southern part of the U.S.

35. FREE BLACK PEOPLE AND SLAVERY
• Historian Ira Berlin wrote:
In slave societies, nearly everyone – free and
slave – aspired to enter the slaveholding class,
and upon occasion some former slaves rose into
slaveholders’ ranks. Their acceptance was
grudging, as they carried the stigma of bondage
in their lineage and, in the case of American
slavery, color in their skin.