Slavery divides the nation The Slave System

The democracy that was spreading in the first half of the 1800’s was not shared by black Americans. Most blacks were slaves. Under the system of slavery, people were bought and sold as if they were objects, not human beings.

By the early 1800’s slavery had been outlawed in most Northern states. In the South, however, where vast cotton plantations were very important to the economy, the slave system was still strong.

Africa and the slave trade. Most of the blacks brought to the United States came from West Africa. Europeans first travelled to Africa at the time of Columbus. By the early 1600’s some Europeans made business by bringing Africans to the New World and selling them as slaves.

The voyage from Africa to the New World was terrible for the captured Africans. They were chained together and put into ships. Many died during the ocean crossing. About 10 million Africans were brought to the New World as slaves.

When the slaves arrived in the United States, they were sold at public auctions. Very often families were divided up to be sold to different owners. Little children were sometimes taken from their mothers.

Slaves belonged to their owners. They had no rights under the law. According to the laws, slaves could not meet together in public. They could not travel without permission. It was also illegal to teach a slave how to read or write. Slaves who disobeyed their owners could be beaten.

In 1808 Congress outlawed the slave trade with Africa. But the system of slavery continued for nearly sixty years after this.

Slave life. On small farms slaves and slave owners often worked together in the fields. But on large plantations most slaves seldom saw their owners. Most of the slaves were field slaves. They worked from early morning till late at night, and some-times at night, too. They were watched by a boss who was called an overseer. A small group of slaves, called house slaves, looked after the owner’s house and family. They prepared meals, cleaned the house and took care of the owner’s children.

Fighting Slavery

By 1830 all the Northern states had outlawed slavery. In the South, however, the rich planters needed much slave labour on their huge plantations, so the Southern states remained slave states.

The Abolitionists. More and more people in America were beginning to understand that slavery was shameful, that there should be no place for slavery in a democratic society. There appeared people who demanded to abolish slavery. These people were called abolitionists. They held meetings and made speeches. They wrote articles about the evils of slavery. Some of these people helped slaves to escape from the South.

Harriet Beecher Stowe. With time, the abolitionist movement grew stronger. It gained many supporters in 1851, after a New England woman named Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote “Uncle Toni’s Cabin ”, a story about slavery. In the story, an old slave named Uncle Tom is killed by a cruel overseer named Simon Legree1. All over the country people discussed “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. The book convinced many people that slavery was an evil that had to end. Years later, when war broke out between the North and the South, President Abraham Lincoln called Harriet Beecher Stowe “the little woman who started this great war”.

The Underground Railroad. There was a secret route to help slaves to escape from the South to freedom in the North and Canada. This secret route was called the “Underground Railroad”. Despite its name, it did not use trains and did not follow an underground route. Blacks and whites worked on the Underground Railroad. The escape route went beyond the borders of the United States into Canada. People who knew the way guided slaves along a footpath. They travelled at night to avoid being seen. In the daytime the slaves were hidden in the homes of supporters. These homes were called “stations”, and the people who led the slaves out of the South were called “conductors”.

The most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad was an escaped slave, a woman whose name was Harriet Tubman. She was born on a Maryland plantation in about 1821.

Harriet Tubman escaped in 1849. For 15 years she worked as a conductor and led over 300 slaves to freedom. She risked her life many times travelling back into the South to rescue other slaves. Slave owners offered a reward of 40,000 dollars for her capture, dead or alive. But no one could catch her.

Slave revolts. Sometimes blacks fought back violently against slavery. The most famous revolt was led by a slave preacher named Nat Turner2. On August 22, 1831, Turner and his followers began attacking whites. Turner and the other slaves were soon captured and put to death. Many innocent slaves were also killed or sent away to work on distant farms because slave owners were afraid that more revolts would take place. By the end of the rebellion a few days later, more than 150 people, black and white, had died.