Life as a Slave

Living the life of a slave was no walk in the park, it was very difficult some of the things they got and went threw are:

• For clothing every year they would get two linen shirts, two pairs of pants, one jacket, one pair of socks, one pair of shoes, a overcoat, and a wool hat.  Today that would be like torcher to us but it was heaven to them.
• Slaves normally lived in wooden shacks with dirt floors, but sometimes the houses were made of boards nailed up with cacks stuffed with rags.  The beds were collected pieces of straw or grass, and old rags, and only one blanket for a cover. One room could have up to twelve people in it. In todays time we would call them homeless basically.
• As a slave when your 12 months old the mother could be sold and you would be left 2 grow and work on that plantation.  when a slave child turns 4 they would sometimes work as babysitters, at the age of 5 they would run errands and carry water tothe field slaves.  Around the age of 8 children would be expected to work on the planation.
• over 32% of marriages between slaves were canceled by masters as a result of slaves being sold away from thier family home.  a slave husband could be separated from his wife, and children would also be separated from their mothers.



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• In order to keep the slaves from trying to rebel their punishment for murder, burglary, arson, and assault on a white person was murder.  The plantation owners believed this severe discipline would make the slaves too scared to try anything. In South Caroline one slave owner would put nails on a barrel sticking out on the inside of the barrel, then put the slave in and roll him or her down a very long steep hill.  another punishment for slaves was to whip them.  owners in Virgina smoked their slaves which means whipping them and putting theim in a tabacco smokehouse. some other punishments included getting beaten with a chear, broom, tongs, shovel, shears, knife handles, the heavy end of a woman's shoe, and an oak club.
• Slave owners prevented their slaves from learning how to read and becoming Christians because they didnt want them to read the Bible. In the South black people were not usually allowed to attend church sevices, in the North black people were more likely to attend church though. Drums which were used in traditional religious ceremonies where banned because overseers worried that they would be used to send messages.

Slave life was no joke they could never slack off or lose their cool or else they could get punished or even worse be killed.

http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/00394/lifeslavelinks.htm

Slavery: North vs. South

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Slavery in the North.

In the 17th century slavery in the North wasn't absolute bondage, it was a nebulous condition similar to that of indentured servants.  Some slaves bought to America from Africa were bought to be servants who were eligible freedom a certain number of years.  The first official legal recognition  of chattel slavery as a legal institution in British North America was in Massachusetts, in 1641, with the “Body of Liberties.” Slavery was legalized in New Plymouth and Connecticut when it was incorporated into the Articles of the New England Confederation in 1643. New England was the center of the slave trade in the colonies, supplyin captive slave to the South and the Carribean islands.  Colonies in the North preferred to get their slaves from the new world colonies instead of directly from Africa because that seemed to difficult and dangerous.  Since they already survived climate changethey also adjusted better to Northern winters, which incapacitated or killed those direct from Africa.  By the late colonial period, the average slave-owning household in New England and Mid-Atlantic had about 2 slaves.

http://www.slavenorth.com/slavenorth.htm

Slavery in the South

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Close to 2 million slaves were brought from Africa to South America and the West Indies during the centuries of the Atlantic slave trade. Approximately 20% of the population of the American South over the years has been African American, and as late as 1900, 9 out of every 10 African Americans lived in the South.  There was a large number of black people mainting manual labor before slavery was legalized but the South wasnt permitted to threaten the region's character as a white man's country.  When slavery became legal white racism became the driving force of southern race relations. In the antebellum South, slavery provided the economic foundation that supported the dominant planter ruling class. Children during this period were often malnourished because they didnt know how to balance out nutrition properly and the slaves werent begin fed equally. The clothing and housing for slaves were bad but managable and they were forced to live in small wooden cabins, one per family. some wealthy slaveholders would call for physicians if their slaves became ill, but the treatments were mostly various concoctions that most of the time did as much harm as good.
   In conclusion slavery in the North wasn't as bad as slavery in the South.
 http://americanrevwar.homestead.com/files/civwar/slavery.html

Slavery During the Civil War



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   Slavery was one of the reasons for the start of the Civil War.  When Abraham Lincoln was elected president no one southern state voted for him because his goal was to stop the expansion of slavery not to abolish it.  White Southerners didnt believe that Lincoln would protect slavery where it already existed so South Carolina declared they would secede from the union of Lincoln was elected president and did just that in December 1861 and was later followed by the lower south states of  Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Florida. In Feburary 1862 a month before Lincoln's inaguration the states formed a new nation called "The Confederate States of America," Lincoln then called for volunteers to suppress the rebellion and firing on Fort Sumpter, right after the other slave states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy. The States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri stayed in the Union.

   The North went to war to save the American union, their goal in the war was to fastly restore the union under the constitution and the laws during 1862 which recognized slavery as legitiment.  Going against slavery would make the reunion of the union difficult so union generals like George B. McClellan in Virgina and Henry W. Halleck in the west were ordered not defeat the southern armies but to prevent rebellion.  In the beginning of the war slaves who escaped to union lines were sent back to their owners in conformity of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. In the South they used their slaves to fight in the war, they used them to build  fortifications, dig latrines, and haul supplies.  Slave owners were reluctant to send their slaves to the front line for 2 reasons one because they risked the lost of their most valuable property so they watched them more closely than they did on their farms and the other reason is the men were overworked and mistreated, they returned back to the farms in bad physical condition so they sent there most unmanagable slaves. With the shortage of white manpower it left the South no choice but to put slaves to work in the factories and mines, with the use of the slaves in industry it prevented the south from fightin longer that they could've.  In the last days of the war the Confederacy even used black slaves to fight offering them freemdom as their reward. The slaves ran way in massive numbers during the spring and summer of 1862, abolitionists who insisted that the war should be one for the freedom of the slaves confronted Lincoln so he created the Emancipation Proclimation which didn't free one slave but silenced the abolitionist. Lincoln pressure and authorized the first all black army unit, aftican americans were offered a step towards emancipation because the North needed them badly. 180,000 African-Americans served in the Union army, and another 20,000 in the Union navy, they made up about 15 percent of all Northern forces in the war out of all the causes the african americans were fighting for their freedom which was the most significant of all the causes.  In September 1862 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal, which complicated the Confederacy's manpower shortages. The slaves of the Confederacy were free because of the Emancipation Proclamation. When the thirteenth Amendment banned slavery in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment said that neither slavery nor involuntary bondage should exist in the United States.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/slavery-during-the-civil-war.html

Harriet Tubman

    Harriet Tubman was born at Edward Brodas plantation near Bucktown, Dorchester County, Maryland.  She was born into slavery because her ancestors were bought from Africa in Shackles in the early 18th century. She was the 11th child born to Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene, her birth name was  Araminta but when she became an adult she started calling herself Harriet.

http://www.freewebs.com/birmingham-schools-kick-racism-out/Site%20Pictures/Harriet%20Tubman.jpg

     In the Biblical story of Exodus they tell you about how Moses freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt in similar events Harriet Tubman was called "Moses" for her work when she freed over 300 black slaves.

      In 1894 Harriet escaped the plantation she was working on, by herself she followed the guide of the North Star to free land in Pennsylvania.  Her escape came about after her master died and she heard rumors that her and her brother were going to be sold to a chain gang, her brother escaped with her but got scared and went back to the plantation.  Harriet only traveled at night until she knew she crossed the border from slaveholding to non-slaveholding states, she later made a  vow that she would go back and help free her family and friends.  She went to Philadelphia and started found work cooking, laudrying, and scrubbing so she could save her money to make rescue trips, she also joined the city's large and active  abolitionist which worked with the Underground Railroad. Using the home of quaker abolitionist Thomas Garrett as a checkpoint, Harriet took on 20 hazardous missions in which she went down south and led slaves up north and sometimes going as far as Canada. She used a rifle on her mission threatening to shoot anyone who wanted to turn back, fellow abolitionist John Brown dubbed her "General" Tubman. Her name quickly spread threw out the south and slaveholders had a $40,000 bounty on her head, but she didn't stop and always managed to evade slavecatchers even once when she fell asleep under her own wanted poster.  Harriet successfully rescued her sister in 1850, her brother in 1851, her other three brothers in 1854, and her parents in 1857, she got her parents a home in Auburn New York from Senate William H. Seward of New York who was a adovcate of hers.  Around 1858 Harriet teamed up with John Brown in a plan to raid Harper's Ferry, Virginia, the plan was to raid the armory, give the weapons to the slaves and start a rebellion, she helped with the fund raising and would've participated if she wasn't sick. In 1865, Harriet began caring for wounded black soldiers as the matron of the Colored Hospital at Fortress Monroe, Virginia and she also continued helping others after the war. She raised money for freedmen's schools, helped destitute children and continued caring for her parents. In 1868, she transformed her family's home into the "Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People" and also lobbied for educational opportunities for freedmen, she also started working on her autobiogragph with Sarah Hopkins Bradford a white school teacher in Auburn New York it was published later that year. In 1869 Harriet married Nelson Davis a Union veteran half her age who was boardered at her house, he died in 1888 from tuberculosis. In 1896, she was a delegate to the National Association of Colored Women's first annual convention, she believed their right to vote was vital to their freedom. Around the start of the 19th century Harriet bought 25 acres of land around her home with the money she raised through benefactors and speaking engagements and  made arrangements for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church to take over the Home. In 1911 herself was welcomed into Home after they heard about her health statues. Harriet Tubman died on March 10, 1913 an was givin a full military style funeral, she was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery.

http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/tubm-har.htm

The Underground Railroad- Post 2

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What is the underground railroad?  The underground railroad is a system where people help runaway slaves get to the North and to Canada, this organized system started at the end of the 18th century. When the system was first created the people helped a slave owned by George Washington escape to the North and he referred to the situation by calling the organization a "society of Quakers, formed for such purposes," the system then grew and around 1831 was named the "Underground Railroad." They named it that after the steam railroads which had just come into play in that time period. The organization also used terms in railroading to represent certain things for example homes and businesses where slaves stayed and ate were called "Stations" and "Depots," these places were run by "Stationmasters," the people who helped out by bringing food and money were "Stockholders," and the people responsible for moving the slaves from one station to another were the "Conductors."  The system was very organized but was alot of hard work for the slaves, they had to escape from their owner and for those who had a conductor posing as a slave they would be guided in the right direction, the slaves could only move at night and travel 10 to 20 to each station where they stoped to rest and eat but they had to hide so they wouldn't get caught.  As the slaves rested they station would send a message to the next station alerting them that a slave would be coming to them.  For the less fortunate slaves who didnt have the luxury of having a conductor guide him they had rely on their own resources to find their way.  Also some slaves would travel by boat that the organization had to pay for.  They also paid to improve the appearance of the slaves so they wouldn't be recognized, the money form this was donated by individuals and various groups, including vigilance committees. Vigilance committes were held in the larger towns like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, also instead of soliciting the money for those purposes the committees helped slaves settle in communities and sent out letters of recommendation to help them find jobs. Their were many noble people who worked in the Underground Railroad like John Fairfeild a son of a slaveholding family who made many daring rescues, Levi Quaker who assisted more than 3,000 slaves, and of course Harriet Tubman who made 19 trips to the South and escorted over 300 slaves out to freedom.
   

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html

Slavery, U.S. History- Post 1



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Slavery in North America was a form of unfree labor which existed as a legal institution before the founding of the United States in 1776 then it became illegal. Slavery continued in the south until the passing of the thirtheenth amendment in the Constitution.  Most slaves were black and were owned by whites, some Native Americans and Blacks were free and owned their own slaves, and their was also a small number of white slaves. Even after the passing of the thirteenth amendment the majority of slaverholders were in the south.  Before the complete ownership of a human known as "Chattel Slavery," slavery was organized under a bonding labor system called "Indentured Servitude." Slavery was racialized in the 18th century by the conial court and  legislatures, they created a caste system mainly inslaving Black Africans, people of African descents, and sometimes Native Americans. "From the 16th to the 19th centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans were shipped as slaves to the Americas. Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States." By 1860 slave popluation grew to four million. In politics slavery was a big issue with the debating on the drafting of the constitution bringing up forth cases such as the banning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Slaves would escape slavery by traveling to non-slave states and Canada using routes such as the "Underground Railroad." Advocates of abolitionism encouraged the creation of Free Soil states as western expansions continued, slavery was also one of the main reasons leading up to the Civil War in America. Slavery was one of the biggest and longest controversies in America since the 1700s.  Even after all the hard work people did to dismantle slavery from society it still goes on today in certain parts of the country, mainly in the south.  Blacks being the biggest target for slavery have come a very long way , they made themselves more known in society as we know it today which is why we have our first black president.  After being abused verbally and physically and being told they will never amount to anything in life blacks have fought and proven people wrong over the years as they become more successfull and continue to reach the highest standards in life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States