Transcript Pre-Civil Rights

Pre–Civil Rights Events in
African American History
Slavery
Slave Rebellions
Underground Railroad
Emancipation
Slave Trade
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Although trade in enslaved persons dates
back to ancient times, it was not
extensively used until the Atlantic trade
between 1520 and 1870. The Atlantic slave
trade was marked by its westward
direction, huge volume, long duration of
crossing, and racial character.
Slave Trade
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Dutch, French, and English colonization in
the Americas opened new markets for slave
traders.
The practice of importing slave labor from
distant Africa sprang from the colonists’
failure to develop a work force among
Native Americans and white immigrants.
Finding that Africans were relatively immune
to tropical diseases, the colonists
rationalized slavery on the grounds that
Africans were racially inferior.
Slave Trade
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The Atlantic slave trade became part of a
prosperous trading cycle known as the
triangular trade.
In the first leg of the triangle, European
merchants purchased African enslaved
people with commodities manufactured in
Europe or imported from European colonies
in Asia.
Europeans then sold the enslaved persons
in the Caribbean and purchased such easily
transportable commodities as sugar, cotton,
and tobacco.
Slave Trade
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Finally, the merchants would sell these goods
in Europe and North America. They would
use the profits from these sales to purchase
more goods to trade in Africa, continuing the
cycle.
The voyage from the African coast to the
Americas was called the Middle Passage.
On average, 16 percent of the enslaved
people—men, women, and children—died at
sea.
Slave Trade
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The typical ocean crossing lasted from 25 to
60 days, depending on origin, destination,
and winds.
Captains kept enslaved persons chained all
day and all night below deck except for brief
periods of exercise. The spaces below deck
were only four or five feet high.
Slave Trade
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Shipboard hygiene
was very primitive.
Captains made little
effort to guard food
and water from
contamination.
Sanitary facilities
were inadequate,
and slave ships
harbored a wealth
of disease.
Scene in the Hold of the “Blood-Stained Gloria.” (Middle Passage.)
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [reproduction
number, e.g., LC-US262-30818.]
Slave Trade
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Ending the slave trade was a long process
that involved changing economic
circumstances and rising humanitarian
concerns.
By the 1700s slavery had become a
recognized and generally accepted institution
in colonial America, particularly in the
Southern Colonies, where the labor of
thousands of enslaved Africans played a vital
role in the growth of the plantation economy.
Slavery
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The spread of the
U.S. cotton
industry—following
the invention of the
cotton gin in
1793—sharply
increased the
demand for
enslaved labor.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
[reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZCZ-22802.]
Slavery
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There emerged a vast slave empire in
the South, which expanded as
Southerners moved west.
By the Civil War, the United States held
almost 4 million enslaved persons who
were confined almost entirely to the
South.
Slavery
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The quality of relationship between the slave
holder and enslaved person varied from place
to place. Enslaved people tried to improve
their conditions, sometimes by running away
or striking back. More often, though, they
focused on their families, friends, and
churches.
Enslaved people faced a variety of
experiences in the Americas. Nearly all
involved heavy physical labor, poor housing,
and insufficient medical care.
Slavery
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Plantation
conditions in the
southern United
States had the
highest mortality
rates of any other
United States
industry of the time
period.
Slave Plantation
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Civil War
Photographs, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-B8184-3287.]
Slavery
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Enslaved people had no privacy in their own
quarters. Slaveholders repeatedly interfered.
Some slaveholders subjected enslaved
people to meaningless rules and frequently
resorted to the lash as punishment for minor
infractions.
Sometimes slaveholders also separated
family members and ensured that slaves had
few legal rights.
Slavery
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In 1857, the Supreme Court of the United
States ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that
African Americans were not citizens and
thus could not sue in court.
In 1834 Dred Scott, an enslaved person,
had been taken to a free state and then free
territory. Later his slaveholder returned him
to Missouri, a slaveholding state.
Scott sued for his freedom in 1846, saying
his residence in a free state and free
territory made him free.
Slavery
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Chief Justice Taney declared that as a slave
Scott was not a U.S. citizen.
Taney and six justices went on to declare
that the Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional because Congress had no
power to prohibit slavery in the territories.
The decision, a clear victory for the South,
increased Northern antislavery sentiment
and strengthened the sectional strife that led
to the Civil War.
Slavery
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From the late 1840s, the controversy over
slavery increasingly dominated national
politics.
Finally, Abraham Lincoln’s election to the
presidency in 1860 plunged the country into
a secession crisis and civil war as Southern
politicians defended the practice of slavery.
Slave Rebellions
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Resistance was a constant feature in the
days of slavery. It took on many forms, from
individual acts of sabotage, poor work,
faking illness, committing crimes like arson
and poisoning, or trying to escape by
running away to the North.
The most dramatic instances were outright
slave rebellions.
Slave Rebellions
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The most notable slave rebellion in American
history, organized by Nat Turner, took place
in Southhampton County, Virginia.
Born into slavery in 1800, Turner was a
preacher and a spiritualist. In the 1820s, he
began to see visions in the sky: black and
white angels fighting, the heavens running
red with blood.
He became convinced that he had been
chosen by God to lead his people to
freedom.
Slave Rebellions
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In August 1831, Turner and a group of
followers launched a rebellion.
By the time the state militia suppressed the
uprising, approximately 60 enslaved people
had joined the rebellion and at least 55 whites
lay dead.
A wave of terror swept over the state. Many
innocent African Americans were killed by
bands of vigilantes.
Slave Rebellions
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Turner himself escaped and remained at
large for several weeks, but eventually he
was captured and executed.
In the aftermath of the rebellion, Virginia’s
legislature debated the gradual abolition of
slavery due to the threat to public order.
Instead, Virginia’s legislature tightened slave
codes that further limited African Americans’
freedom of movement. These codes made it
illegal for preachers to conduct services
without a white being present, staving off
future rebellions.
Underground Railroad
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The Underground Railroad was neither
underground nor a railroad, but a secret
network of safe houses and antislavery
activists (including African Americans, whites,
and Native Americans) who helped enslaved
people escape to freedom.
Though never formally organized, tens of
thousands of enslaved people, aided by more
than 3,200 railroad “workers,” escaped
through this network to the Northern states,
Canada, Texas, Mexico, and through Florida
to the Caribbean.
Underground Railroad
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The Underground Railroad was operating as
early as the 1500s, when the first African
captives were brought to the Spanish
colonies. However, its activity peaked
between 1830 and 1860.
In the Americas, much of the Railroad’s
history was passed down orally through
generations. Not only were many of the
enslaved people that made the journey
illiterate, but those who aided them did not
write about it, or destroyed their records,
because they feared detection.
Underground Railroad
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Enslaved people typically had to travel many
hundreds of miles—through woods, over
fields, and across rivers—to reach freedom.
Often they traveled at night to avoid
detection, using the North Star as a compass.
Since they could carry little food, they had to
make their journey weakened by hunger.
Runaways sometimes wore disguises.
Females would dress as males; males as
females. Some pretended to deliver
messages or goods for their masters.
Underground Railroad
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The homes and businesses where runaways
could rest and eat were called “stations” and
were run by “stationmasters.” Those who
contributed money or goods were
“stockholders” and the “conductor” moved the
runaways from one station to the next. The
fugitive slaves were known as “freight.”
Workers on the Underground Railroad
represented all levels of society—they were
ministers, shopkeepers, farmers, and former
slaves.
Underground Railroad
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Harriet Tubman, a
runaway from
Maryland, made at
least 19 trips into
the South and
helped to rescue
more than 300
enslaved people.
Harriet Tubman
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
Division, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ627816.]
Underground Railroad
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The term "Underground Railroad" may have
originated when an enslaved person, Tice
Davids, fled from Kentucky and took refuge
with John Rankin, a white abolitionist in
Ripley, Ohio.
Davids’s slaveholder chased him all the way
to the Ohio River, but Davids managed to
disappear without a trace. His slaveholder left
in a state of confusion, wondering whether
Davids had disappeared on “some
underground railroad.”
Underground Railroad
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Capturing
runaways soon
became a
prosperous
business. The
Fugitive Slave Act
of 1850 allowed a
slave holder or
professional bounty
hunter to seize
runaways, even in
free states.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
[reproduction number, e.g., LC-17414-Z62-34810.]
Emancipation
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In 1863, President
Abraham Lincoln
issued the
Emancipation
Proclamation,
declaring all
enslaved people
free in the
Southern states.
Emancipation Day, Richmond, VA
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit
Publishing Company Collection, [reproduction number, e.g.,
LC-D4-10865]
Emancipation
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Unfortunately, none of the states in rebellion
obeyed this order.
The proclamation demonstrated that the
Civil War was being fought to end slavery.
Initially, President Lincoln viewed the war
only in terms of preserving the Union. As
time went by, he became increasingly
sympathetic to the abolitionist movement.
The end of slavery came with the ratification
of the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution in December 1865.