Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement!

Slavery in the United States!•  By the 1770s nearly

400,000 Africans were sold to Britain’s North American colonies!

•  In 1807 the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves prevented the importation of new slaves into the United States!

Slavery in the United States!•  The slave population

continued to grow due to the birth of blacks into slavery and a thriving illegal Atlantic Slave Trade market!

•  Nearly two million slaves lived throughout the South by the start of the Civil War!

East African slaves aboard the HMS Daphne, a British Royal Navy vessel involved in anti-slave trade activities in the Indian Ocean, 1868!

Slavery in the United States!•  By the 1860s the US

had developed two unique economic and cultural regions: North and South!

•  The South, with its plantation economy, relied on an enslaved labor force!

•  Northern states relied on manufacturing and trade!

Cumberland Landing (Foller’s farm), Virginia, 14 May 1862

Union-occupied plantaDon of Confederate general Thomas Drayton, Hilton Head, South Carolina, May 1862

Five GeneraDons of Slaves on the PlantaDon of James Joyner Smith Beaufort, South Carolina, 1862

James Hopkinson's PlantaDon. PlanDng sweet potatoes. ca. 1862/63

Slavery in the United States!•  In 1850 Congress passed

the Fugitive Slave Act!– Run away slaves had to

be returned to their masters!

– Denied trial by jury for blacks accused of being a runaway slave!

– Anyone convicted of helping a fugitive could be fined $1,000 and imprisoned for up to six months!

Resistance among slaves!•  The resistance

included:!– Stealing property!– Sabotage of equipment!– Slowness in work!– Killing overseers and

masters!– Burning down

plantation buildings!– Running away!– Attempted slave

revolts!

Resistance among slaves!•  Running away was much more

realistic than armed insurrection!•  During the 1850s about a thousand

slaves a year escaped into the North, Canada, and Mexico!

“There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive....”!

- Harriet Tubman!

Resistance in Abolitionism!•  The goal of the

abolitionist movement was the immediate emancipation of all slaves and the end of racial discrimination and segregation!

•  African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people called the Underground Railroad who would transport and hide fugitive slaves!

Resistance in Abolitionism!•  “Conductors” on the

routes hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards, provided them with food and clothing, and escorted or directed them to the next “station”!

•  Harriet Tubman is one of the Underground Railroad's most famous “conductors”!