1、Antislavery and Abolitionism in British Colonial North America and the United States,AAS 101 Review Slides for Prof. Frenchs Lecture Nov. 16,Study Question:Why did movements to stop the importation of slaves from Africa and abolish slavery in America arise in the mid- to late eighteenth century afte
2、r centuries of apathy on the subject?,According to historian Peter Kolchin, several factors converged to produce this development.Age of Enlightenment A rising belief in the malleability of human nature and the influence of environment on human behaviorThe spread of capitalism and its ideology of fr
3、ee labor Fourth, new religious developments (Great Awakening),Two Abolitionist Campaigns,Movement for the Abolition of the International Slave Trade (outlawed by U.S. Congress in 1808) Movement for the Abolition of Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade (abolished by presidential decree in rebel state
4、s only, 1863; abolished throughout US by constitutional amendment in 1865),The movement to abolish the international slave trade, beginning in the early 18th century, enjoyed widespread support among slaveholders in Virginia and the Upper South.,In 1723, the Virginia General Assembly passed an “Act
5、for Laying Duty on Liquors and Slaves,” which imposed a forty-shilling duty on imported slave laborers. The act, supported by the great planters, was designed to limit the number of slaves employed in the cultivation of tobacco with the aim of reducing production and raising prices. British authorit
6、ies revoked the duties, citing their adverse effect on commerce.,The great planters concerned about the uncontrolled growth of the slave population through importation and natural reproduction continued to push the British colonial government for restrictions on the international slave trade. Some p
7、lanters, such as William Byrd II, added an humanitarian component to the economic argument against the slave trade. In 1736, Byrd wrote that Parliament must “put an end to this unchristian Traffick of making Merchandize of Our Fellow Creatures.”,The British Crowns veto of slave trade duties became o
8、ne the major grievances cited by the Americas slaveholding patriots in building a case for independence from Great Britain.,1772: Virginias House of Burgesses asks King George III to halt importation of slaves into colonies,JustificationHumanitarian: “The importation of Slaves into the Colonies from
9、 the Coast of Africa hath long been considered as a Trade of great Inhumanity Public Safety: “Under its present Encouragement, we have too much Reason to fear it will endanger the very Existence of your Majestys American dominions . . . 3. Political Economy: “We are sensible that some of your majest
10、ys subjects in Great-Britain may reap Emoluments from this Sort of Traffic, but when we consider that it greatly retards the Settlement of the Colonies with more useful inhabitants, and may, in Time, have the most destructive Influence, we presume to hope that the Interest of a few will be disregard
11、ed when placed in Competition with the Security and Happiness of such Numbers of your Majestys dutiful and loyal subjects.”,April 1774: Thomas Jefferson cites the King Georges veto of Virginias anti-slave trade legislation as a prime example of his “shameful abuse” of power.,“The abolition of domest
12、ic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, a
13、nd by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majestys negative: Thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few African corsairs to the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous prac
14、tice.”Thomas Jefferson, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” (1774),1774: Resolutions adopted by Virginia counties condemn the African slave trade “injurious,” “wicked,” “cruel” and “unnatural”,Text of Fairfax County, Va., resolution, George Washington, Esq., presiding: Resolved, That i
15、s it is the opinion of this meeting that, during our present difficulties and distress, no slaves ought to be imported into any of the British colonies on this continent; and we take this opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to see an entire stop forever put to such a wicked, cruel, and
16、unnatural trade.,October 1774: Articles of Association adopted by delegates to the First Continental Congress include this anti-slave importation resolution: “We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time, we will wholly discontinue th
17、e slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.”,1776: Jeffersons Draft of Declaration of Independence indicts King George III for perpetuating the slave trade,“He has waged cruel w
18、ar against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people Africans who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.”,Majority of Delegates
19、 to U.S. Constitutional Convention (1787) Opposed International Slave Trade,Yet delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, with some support from North Carolina, rejected any interference with the slave trade. To keep these colonies in the Union, the other delegates agreed to a compromise: The Const
20、itution would ban federal action against the international slave trade for twenty years.,Constitutional Ban on International Slave Trade,Art. I, Sect. 9: The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congres
21、s prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight (1808), but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.,Illustrating the Horrors of the Middle Passage Plan of the Slave Ship Brookes, first published in 1789,State laws prohibiting participatio
22、n by U.S. citizens in the trade were reinforced by federal law in 1794. Congress banned the trade in 1808.,Study Questions: Why did the international slave trade become such an easy target for abolitionists? Why was the practice almost universally condemned by the late 18th century? Why, in the view
23、 of some historians, did the early success of the anti-international slave trade movement weaken the campaign to abolish the domestic slave trade and slavery in the United States?,Rise of Interstate or Domestic Slave Trade in the U.S. (“The Second Middle Passage”),Fueled by closing of international
24、trade in 1808 and expansion of slavery into cotton states of the Deep South. An estimated 300,000 Virginia slaves were sold “down the river,” many of them from Alexandria, within sight of the nations capital, to a large depot near Natchez, Mississippi.,Growth of Slavery in Lower South 1800-1860,Even
25、 as slaves were transported into the Lower South, the birthrate among enslaved women rose, creating a large proportion of children born into bondage. By 1830, nearly 700,000 of the two million slaves were younger than 10.,By 1860, the ratio of blacks to whites in the Upper South was 30:100. In the L
26、ower South, the ratio was 82:100.,Overview of Antislavery Activism,Between 1777 and 1804, all states from Pennsylvania northward provided effectively for the eventual abolition of slavery. In the same period, in the antislavery South, the tide of public sentiment and action moved tentatively in the
27、direction of abolition until the 1790s, but then took a reactionary turn. By 1807, it was clear that colonization was the only acceptable program of antislavery activism in the South.,Jeffersons Emancipation/Colonization Scheme (Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785),Jeffersons plan called for all bl
28、acks born after a certain date to be freed at birth, raised at public expense till the age of majority, then “to be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper.” To replace its diminishing slave labor force, the plan called for Virginia “to send vessels at the
29、same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be proposed.”,Jeffersons Rationale for the Colonization of Manumitted Slaves Outside U.S. as a Condition of their Freedom,From Query XIV: Laws It will proba
30、bly be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sust
31、ained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race. - To these objections, which are political, may be added other
32、s, which are physical and moral. From Query XVIII: Manners For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individ
33、ual endeavours to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him.,Jeffersons plan inspired the founding of The American Colonization Society in 1817. While many of those present at the founding of the Society shared Jeffersons
34、view of slavery as an evil inheritance from Great Britain and a grievous burden to the American slaveholder, they did not necessarily share his view of colonization as a first step toward abolishing slavery. Several of the organizers, led by chairman Henry Clay of Kentucky, insisted on constitutiona
35、l guarantees that the group would not “touch or agitate, in the slightest degree,” the issue of slavery.,As slavery expanded into the cotton-rich states of Gulf Region, the South moved to protect the “peculiar institution” from internal criticism and outside interference. The Southern antislavery mo
36、vement, in the Jeffersonian tradition of gradual emancipation and colonization, withered and died. The case for slavery as a positive good became orthodoxy for a new generation of proslavery ideologues and demagogues.,The slow death of slavery in the North began after the Revolution. The egalitarian
37、 promise of the Great Awakening and the Declaration of Independence, combined with economic changes that made slavery less profitable in the North, generated support for gradual emancipation.,Vermont abolished slavery by state constitution in 1777, tens years before the ratification of the U.S. Cons
38、titution. Massachusetts abolished slavery by judicial decision (the Quock Walker case) in 1783. Although slavery continued to exist in Massachusetts, the Quock Walker decision indicated that it would no longer be supported by the state courts.,Other Northern states followed suit, emancipating slaves
39、 by constitution or judicial decision:Pennsylvania 1780 Rhode Island 1784 (post-nati, first slave freed 1811) Connecticut 1784 (post-nati, 1818) New Hampshire 1788-89 New York 1799 (post-nati, 1827) Ohio 1802 New Jersey 1804 (post-nati, 1825) Indiana - 1816 Illinois 1818 (post-nati, 1845),Post-nati
40、emancipation kept those “freed” at birth in servitude until age 28 Some masters required long indentureships as condition of freedom Former masters kept former slaves in state of dependence by providing provision grounds adequate to survival but insufficient for profitable cultivation Impoverished f
41、ree blacks forced to apprentice their children; unable to support elderly relatives,The legal status of African Americans varied from state to state in the NorthMassachusetts: full citizenship Pennsylvania: disfranchisementVariables: Numerical strength of black population Geographic position of stat
42、e Political and economic factors,“Jim Crow” Laws and Customs in the Antebellum North and West,Testimony of African Americans disallowed in cases where white man was a party (Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and California) African Americans barred, by law and custom, from serving on juries (all states
43、 but Massachusetts) African Americans prohibited from holding real estate, making contracts, filing lawsuits (Oregon) Unequal enforcement of laws; unequal sentencing Racial segregation enforced by custom, if not law, in schools, public transit (railway cars, stage coaches, steamboats), hotels, resta
44、urants, churches, hospitals, prisons, graveyards, etc.,The Economics of Repression,African Americans were restricted to the lowest paid, often most dangerous, most menial jobs limited to work as servants, seamen, and common laborers denied access by unions to skilled trades employed as strike-breake
45、rs, further alienating them from whites-only unions,Many Northern and Western states adopted laws restricting or prohibiting in-migration of blacks,Rationale: restriction necessary to keep the peace, prevent influx of manumitted slaves expelled from Southern states. Many Northern whites particularly
46、 in border states - feared their states would become de facto “colonies” for the Souths unwanted free black population.,Methods of Restriction,State laws and, in some cases, state constitutions, discouraged free black immigration. African Americans seeking to resettle in the older states of the Nort
47、h and the new states of the West were:Barred outright from entry Required to produce proof of freedom and citizenship in another state Required to post a bond ($500 to $1000) guaranteeing good behavior,Contrast Anti-Black Immigration Laws to “Naturalization” of White Immigrants,Naturalization: “to i
48、nvest (an alien) with the rights and privileges of a citizen.”The earliest naturalization laws adopted by Congress (1790, 1795, 1798) limited the extension of U.S. citizenship to free white persons of good moral character. These white immigrants, particularly the Irish, drove African Americans out o
49、f the menial positions they once monopolized.,German and Irish Immigration, 1830-1860,Frederick Douglass on Anti-Black Prejudice Among Irish-American Immigrants (1854),“The Irish, who, at home, readily sympathize with the oppressed everywhere, are instantly taught when they step upon our soil to hat
50、e and despise the negro. They are taught to believe that he eats the bread that belongs to them. The cruel lie is told them, that we deprive them of labor and receive the money which would otherwise make its way into their pockets. Sir, the Irish-American will find out his mistake one day. He will f
51、ind that in assuming our avocation, he has also assumed our degradation. But for the present we are the sufferers. Our old employments by which we have been accustomed to gain a livelihood are gradually slipping from our hands: every hour sees us elbowed out of some employment to make room for some newly arrived emigrant from the Emerald Isle, whose hunger and color entitle him to special favor. These white men are becoming house-servants, cooks, stewards, waiters, and flunkies.” Source: Speech to American Anti-Slavery Society in New York as quoted in Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.,
