Slavery in America

When was in college, one of my Caucasian class mates actually said to me with a nasty attitude, “why ya’ll whining about the slavery of black people so much, the Indians was in slavery a lot longer, so I don’t see the point of everybody keep talking about it.”

In the conscious of most, nobody understands why slavery was taken so far and got out of hand to the point it violated the morals of man-kind well before it was against the law. Slavery is, and was, morally and ethically wrong!

The continent of Africa was targeted, simply because of the color of our skin. So that’s why as a people we will never get over it or stop talking about it.

The harsh treatment of our ancestors and so many civil rights leaders and ancestors died trying give African-Americans, our freedom, our civil rights and establish civil liberties. Talking about slavery is a cultural necessity; because it is an important thread in the American fabric and the development of the United States since 1526.

I am blogging about it, I don’t care if you embrace the facts or not, but I know, you understand our history which the history of slavery in the U.S.

I am not honoring my ancestor slave history by blaming, hating and using racial slurs, I am simply aware of my history and I am proud to know my ancestors were strong enough to bear the worst adversity in history known to mankind. I am angered by the mistreatment of my ancestors and I will never forget!

Slavery mainly existed because there was a serious need for labor in the South. Paid workers did not want to work in the conditions of the plantations, slaves became an essential part of developing the New World.

A lot people think the White ancestors started slavery, when in fact it was a black man who started it all his name was Anthony Johnson (1600-1670) and then he was captured by an enemy tribe and sold to the Arab Muslim slave traders.

In 1654 it was time for Anthony Johnson to release John Casor, a black servant. Johnson to Casor he was extending his time, Casor left to work with the white man Robert Parker. In 1655, the court ruled that Johnson could hold Casor indefinitely and the Court gave judicial sanction for Blacks to own a slave of their own race. Casor then became the first permanent slave and Johnson became the first slave owner.

Slavery was taken to another level by white slave masters; the slave masters turned slavery into a nightmare of abuse and cruelty that shocked the conscious of everyone in the world for 245 years. from 1619 till 1865 with the help of the 13th Amendment.

Slaves were brought to the New World since 1501; from 1526 to 1867, approximately 12.5 million slaves had been shipped from Africa, and 10.7 million had arrived in America. The 1st slave voyage direct from Africa to America; approximately set sail from 1526. The volume of slaves from Africa reached nearly 30,000 per year in the 1690s and 85,000 per year in 1691.

The majority of slaves were brought to British North America between 1720 and 1780; between 1821to 1830 over 80,000 people left Africa in slave ships.

When the United States became a nation in 1789, there almost 700,000 slaves here.

• Africans carried to Brazil came from Angola and Africans carried to North American including the Caribbean were mainly from West Africa.
• Only 6% percent of African slaves were sent directly to British North America.
• Well over 90% of African slaves were imported to the Caribbean and South America.
  By 1825, the US had a quarter of blacks in the New World.

The 1st Africans arrived in Jamestown; Virginia 1619 by Dutch traders captured them from the Amistad, the Spanish slave ship; John Rolfe.

Slavery spread throughout the world; African American slaves helped build the economic foundations of the new nation in America. The American Civil War in 1861-1865, was one of the bloodiest wars fought; through the Union victory this freed 4 million slaves.

The civil rights movement emerged in the 1960’s. 6 to 7 million slaves were imported to the New World during the 18th century. Most slaves lived on large farms and large and small plantations, slave owners sought to make slaves completely dependent on them, they were prohibited from reading and writing, masters even had sex with slave women, while rebellious slaves were brutally punished.

Slave marriages had no legal basis, but slaves did marry and raise large families, but none the less the slave master did not hesitate to divide slave families by sale or removal.

The 13th Amendment, adopted late in 1865, officially abolished slavery; slaves received rights of citizenship and equal protection of the 14th Amendment in 1868 and also received the right to vote in the 15th Amendment in 1870; but the provisions of the Constitution were often ignored and violated.

By 1877, The Re-birth of the white supremacy and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan had triumphed in the South.  When Abraham Lincoln became president, his anti-slavery views were well known, in September of 1862, Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation; and on January 1, 1863, he made it official that slaves within any State, or any designated part of the State, shall be forever free. This freed some 3 million black slaves in rebel states.

From the 1830s to the 1860s, a movement to abolish slavery in America gained strength in the northern United States, led by Frederick Douglas and white supporters such as Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Free blacks and other antislavery northerners began helping fugitive slaves escape from southern plantations to the North in the 1780s.

Harriet Tubman, born Araminta Ross; born a slave in Maryland; escaped slavery in 1849, because she endured harsh beatings and working in the field. She left behind her husband and her family. She begun the infamous; Underground Railroad, it had gained a momentum in the 1830s and during the turbulent 1950s helped free 40,000 to 100,000 slaves reach freedom including her family.

Harriet Tubman made 19 trips to the South. The Underground Railroad was not underground or a railroad, the name came from the activities was done in secret, in the darkness, wearing disguises. The network of routes extended through 14 states or Canada.

The idea of organized outsiders, slave unions, undermining the institution of slavery angered white southerners, which lead to their demands in the 1840s that the Fugitive Slave Laws be strengthened. Rewards offered by slaveholders for Harriet Tubman’s capture reached up to $40,000.

Author,

Gigi King 4/14/2016

Sources Cited:

http://www.history.com