Slavery, Abolition

1
Slavery, Abolition Lincoln

• From Admission
• Through the Abolitionist Movement
• The Civil War
• And Reconstruction

A PowerPoint Timeline Produced by the Elijah
Parrish Lovejoy Society
2
Rise of the Slave Trade

• When most American students think of slavery,
  they think tobacco, cotton, the United States

3
Rise of the Slave Trade

• But slavery started in South America and moved to
  the Caribbean and the motivating crop was, in
  fact, SUGAR.
• And not all slaves worked in the fields

4
The Sugar Refinery
5
Out of the Mists of Time

• The Dutch and Portugese competed for the slave
  trade eventually the Dutch simply served as
  bankers for the lucrative practice.

Slave market in Pernabucoo, Brazil
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Out of the Mists of Time
They felt the sea-wind tying them into one nation
of eyes and shadows and groans, in the one pain
that is inconsolable, the loss of ones
shore. They had wept, not for their wives only,
their fading children, but for strange, ordinary
things. This one, who was a hunter wept for a
sapling lance whose absent heft snag in his
palms hollow. One, a fisherman, for an ocher
river encircling his calves one a weaver, for
the straw fisherpot he had meant to repair,
wilting in water. They cried for the little thing
after the big thing. They cried for a broken
gourd. Derek Walcott, Omeros
7
The Middle Passage

• Prior to 1750, death rates approached or exceeded
  20 from disease, dehydration and malnutrition
• Depression and its resulting suicide or
  self-starvation must also be counted

8
The Middle Passage

• After 1750 although faster ships and vaccinations
  reduced the death rates, poor sanitation led to
  many deaths

9
Seasoning

• Seasoning in the West Indies followed the sale
  of slaves.
• Creoles (slaves born in the Americas) sold for
  three times the price of new Africans

10
Seasoning

• Seasoning involved discipline and attitude
  modification.
• Slaves were often given new names
• Christian names
• Generic African
• Classical Greek/Roman

11
Seasoning

• Seasoning also involved learning European
  languages, especially on the Spanish Caribbean
  islands.
• Seasoning varied in length. New Africans often
  served apprenticeships under old Africans from
  their same ethnics group or with creoles.

12
Jamestown, 1619

• Before the Pilgrims and Puritans, African slaves
  were here
• A Dutch merchantman arrived with 20 Africans for
  sale in August, 1619
• Among the first were Anthony Isabella, who in
  1624 gave birth to William, the first
  African-American.

13
Emergence of Chattel Slavery

• Precedent set in British Caribbean sugar
  colonies
• Price of (white) indentured servants rises as
  poor whites find better opportunities in other
  regions of North America

• British control of slave trade makes African
  laborers cheaper

14
Emergence of Chattel Slavery

• English had historically discriminated in their
  treatment of those who were different from them
• Irish
• Amerindians
• British masters immediately made distinctions
  between black and white servants

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Distinctions in Treatment White Black Servants

• The few black women usually worked in the
  tobacco fields alongside the men most white
  women were assigned domestic duties
• Black servants did not usually have surnames
• Early census reports listed blacks and whites on
  different lists

16
Distinctions in Treatment White Black Servants

• By the 1640s black servants could not bear arms
• By the 1640s colonial Anglican priests
  maintained that persons of African descent could
  not become Christians
• Sexual relations discouraged (1662 Virginia
  House of Burgesses provided for double fines for
  fornication between Christians and blacks)

17
Emergence of Chattel Slavery

• These distinctions indicate that there was never
  equal status between black and white servants
• Not until the 1640s, however, do records
  indicate a movement toward slavery instead of
  servitude

18
Emergence of Chattel Slavery

• A 1640 Court case concerning 3 escaped servants
  (1 Dutch, 1 Scot, John Punch of African-descent)
  required whippings for all three and 4-year
  extensions for the first two, lifetime servitude
  for Punch
• By the mid 1640s, black men, women and children
  sold for higher prices on the explicit provision
  that black people would serve for their Life
  tyme or for ever.

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Emergence of Chattel Slavery

• Chattel slavery is institutionalized by the
  1660s.
• Bills of sale began to stipulate that the
  children of black female servants would also be
  servants for life.
• 1662 Virginia House of Burgesses decreed that a
  childs status followed that of the mother.
• Servitude assumed to be the natural condition of
  black people.

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Emergence of Chattel Slavery

• Slavery emerges as a racially defined system of
  perpetual servitude compelling almost all black
  people to work as agricultural laborers
• Slave codes develop to define and control
  slavery

21
17th Century Slave Codes

• Slaves could not testify against white people in
  court
• Slaves could not own property
• Slaves could not leave their masters estate
  without a pass

• Slaves could not congregate in groups larger
  than 3-4
• Slaves could not enter into contracts
• Slaves could not marry
• Slaves could not bear arms

22
Bacons Rebellion

• Aristocrat Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion to
  protest the royal governors Indian policy
• Appealed to both white former indentured
  servants black slaves.

23
Bacons Rebellion

• Bacons death ended last best hope for uniting
  poor blacks and whites.
• Convinced planter class that white labor was
  unreliable switching to black slaves might help
  avoid class conflict

24
The Abolitionists

• Benjamin Lundy (The Genius of Universal
  Emancipation)
• John Russwurm (Freedoms Journal)
• David Walker (The Appeal)
• William Lloyd Garrison (The Liberator)
• Elijah P. Lovejoy (Observer)

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1819 - Benjamin Lundy

• Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker abolitionist, earned
  the distinction of publishing The Genius of
  Universal Emancipation, the first American
  anti-slavery newspaper, in 1821. He lived in St.
  Louis from 1819 - 1821.

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1827

• John Russwurm publishes first black newspaper
• Freedoms Journal

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1829

• David Walker publishes a pamphlet protesting
  slavery
• The Appeal

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1831

• William Lloyd Garrison publishes an abolitionist
  periodical
• The Liberator

29
1831 - Nat Turner

• Charismatic slave leader Nat Turner leads a
  bloody revolt in Virginia
• 55 whites die
• Inspires a man named John Brown

30
Moses Dickson

• Born in Ohio, Moses Dickson traveled throughout
  the South as an itinerant barber. A freeman, he
  was moved by what he saw. Later ordained in the
  African Methodist Church, he worked to secure
  rights for his people. He is buried in a black
  cemetery in Crestwood, MO, just off the newly
  extended Grant Trail.

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1832- 1833

• New England Anti-Slavery Society founded in 1832
• In 1833 Garrison organizes the
• American
• Anti-Slavery Society

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Mary Easton Sibley

• Founder of Lindenwood College in St. Charles,
  MO, this abolitionist supporter believed in
  education for blacks and Indians.

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1846 - John Berry Meachum

• The Freedom School
• This courageous leader and preacher refused to
  let Missouris black codes keep him from
  educating young black children.

34
The Underground Railroad

• Neither a railroad nor underground, the
  Underground Railroad was a network of blacks and
  whites committed to helping runaway slaves to
  freedom.

Harriett Tubman (L) and several slaves she led to
freedom
A stop on the Underground RR (Worthington,
Ohio, near Columbus)
35
Follow the Drinkin Gourd
The Underground Railroad helped numerous slaves
find freedom
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Sources, Bibliography

• The African-American Odyssey
• Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, Stanley
  Harrold