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Created Jan 0001
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Slavery In The United States

“This article chronicles the institution of chattel slavery in the United States of America, primarily impacting Africans and African Americans. Its prevalence...”

Contents
  • 1. Overview
  • 2. Etymology
  • 3. Cultural Impact

This article chronicles the institution of chattel slavery in the United States of America , primarily impacting Africans and African Americans . Its prevalence spanned from the nation’s founding in 1776 until 1865, with its most significant concentration in the South . Slavery, however, was a deeply ingrained practice throughout the entire expanse of European colonization in the Americas . Its roots in what would become Britain’s colonies , including the Thirteen Colonies that forged the United States, date back to 1526, during the nascent colonial period . The legal framework dictated that children born to enslaved mothers were themselves born into slavery, a principle known as partus sequitur ventrem . Consequently, enslaved individuals were legally defined as property, subject to sale, transfer, or bestowal. This system of bondage persisted in approximately half of the U.S. states until its ultimate abolition in 1865. The ramifications of slavery permeated every facet of the nation’s political landscape, its economic structure, and its social customs. In the decades following the conclusion of Reconstruction in 1877, many of the economic and social functions of slavery were perpetuated through systems of segregation , sharecropping , and convict leasing . It is crucial to note that involuntary servitude, as a penalty for criminal offenses, remains legally permissible in the United States .

By the time of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the status of enslaved individuals had solidified into a racial caste intrinsically linked to African ancestry. [2] During and in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, a burgeoning abolitionist sentiment led to the enactment of laws by most Northern states , fostering a movement dedicated to the eradication of slavery. The contentious role of slavery proved to be the most divisive issue during the drafting of the United States Constitution in 1789. The Three-Fifths Clause , a provision within the Constitution, granted disproportionate political influence to slaveholding states. [3] Furthermore, the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 ) stipulated that states could not prevent the return of escaped slaves to their purported owners. By 1805, all Northern states had abolished slavery, albeit through gradual processes that sometimes included extended periods of unpaid indentured servitude .

The process of abolition was frequently a protracted one. In some instances, particularly in the Upper South , slaveholders voluntarily freed their enslaved individuals, while philanthropic organizations intervened to purchase and liberate others. The Atlantic slave trade began to be outlawed by individual states concurrent with the American Revolution, and Congress officially banned it in 1808. [4] [5] Despite these legislative efforts, smuggling remained a common practice, and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (now the Coast Guard) commenced its role in enforcing the ban on the high seas. [6] It is estimated that prior to 1820, a majority of serving congressmen were slave owners, and approximately 30 percent of congressmen born before 1840 (the last being Rebecca Latimer Felton , who served briefly in the 1920s) owned slaves at some point in their lives. [7]

The burgeoning cotton industry in the Deep South , significantly boosted by the invention of the cotton gin , led to a dramatic surge in the demand for slave labor. This solidified the Southern states as slave societies. The United States, increasingly bifurcated into slave and free states , experienced escalating polarization over the issue of slavery. Fueled by the labor demands of new cotton plantations in the Deep South , the Upper South witnessed the sale of over a million enslaved individuals, who were subsequently transported to the Deep South. Ultimately, the total slave population in the South reached four million. [8] [page needed ] [9] As the United States expanded westward, Southern states actively sought to extend slavery into newly acquired territories, aiming to preserve the political power of proslavery factions in Congress. The territories obtained through the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican Cession became focal points of significant political crises and compromises. [10] In the South, slavery was increasingly defended as a “positive good,” and major religious denominations fractured along regional lines, establishing distinct Northern and Southern organizations over the issue of slavery.

By 1850, the affluent, cotton-producing South began to articulate threats of secession from the Union . Violent confrontations, famously known as Bleeding Kansas , erupted over the issue of slavery in the Kansas Territory . The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, on a platform advocating for the cessation of slavery’s expansion, triggered the secession of slave states to form the Confederacy . Shortly thereafter, the Civil War commenced with the Confederate assault on the U.S. Army’s Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. During the conflict, several jurisdictions abolished slavery , and Union measures, including the Confiscation Acts and the Emancipation Proclamation , effectively dismantled slavery in many regions. The ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 6, 1865, formally prohibited “slavery [and] involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime.” [11]

Background

Image of tobacco production by enslaved laborers in the Colony of Virginia (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)

Throughout the majority of the British colonial period, slavery was a legal institution in all of the colonies. In the North , enslaved individuals typically engaged in domestic service, artisanal trades, and general labor. A significant portion of these individuals worked in urban environments, contributing to dockside activities and maritime commerce. In 1703, over 42 percent of households in New York City maintained enslaved individuals, a proportion second only to Charleston, South Carolina . [12] Enslaved people also contributed to agricultural labor in rural communities, not only in the South but also in upstate New York , Long Island , Connecticut , and New Jersey . By 1770, the population that would soon constitute the United States included 397,924 black individuals out of a total population of 2.17 million. The enslaved population of the colonial era was distributed unevenly across the colonies: 14,867 resided in New England , representing three percent of the population; 34,679 lived in the Middle Colonies , comprising six percent of the population; and 347,378 were located in the five Southern Colonies , making up 31 percent of the population. [13]

The South’s economy was fundamentally agrarian, reliant on the cultivation of commodity crops . Its planter class amassed a significantly larger number and proportion of enslaved individuals within the overall population due to the labor-intensive nature of these crops. [14] Initially, enslaved laborers in the South primarily worked on farms and plantations cultivating indigo , rice , and tobacco ; cotton only emerged as a major crop after the 1790s. By 1720, approximately 65 percent of the population of South Carolina was enslaved. [15] Planters, defined by historians in the Upper South as those holding 20 or more slaves, utilized enslaved labor for the cultivation of commodity crops. They also employed enslaved individuals in artisanal trades on their vast plantations and in numerous Southern port cities. The subsequent wave of settlers in the 18th century, who established communities along the Appalachian Mountains and in the backcountry , consisted primarily of subsistence farmers who seldom owned enslaved people.

Detail of colonial-era church brickwork in Maryland; brickmakers in Baltimore were predominantly Black and often enslaved. [16]

Commencing in the latter half of the 18th century, a debate arose concerning the continued importation of African slaves into the American colonies. Many colonists, including the Southern slavocracy , expressed opposition to further slave importations, driven by concerns about potential colonial destabilization and increased slave rebellions . In 1772, prominent Virginians submitted a petition to the Crown , advocating for the abolition of the slave trade to Virginia; this petition was ultimately rejected. [17] Rhode Island enacted a prohibition on slave importation in 1774. The influential revolutionary document, the Fairfax Resolves , condemned the Atlantic slave trade as “wicked, cruel and unnatural.” [18] During the Revolutionary War, all of the colonies collectively banned the importation of slaves. [19]

Slavery in the American Revolution and early republic

The Old Plantation , a watercolor attributed to John Rose, possibly painted between 1785 and 1795 in the Beaufort District of South Carolina (Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum )

Slavery, a practice with a history spanning millennia and existing globally, was a legally recognized institution in the United States and many other parts of the world, deeply embedded within the social and economic fabric of numerous societies. The Enlightenment ideals and the principles championed during the American Revolution played a pivotal role in bringing slavery and the imperative for its abolition to the forefront of the political agenda. As historian Christopher L. Brown articulated, slavery had “never been on the agenda in a serious way before,” but the American Revolution “forced it to be a public question from there forward.” [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]

Following the successful establishment of the nation’s independence, slavery emerged as a contentious issue at the 1787 Constitutional Convention . A significant number of the Founding Fathers of the United States were themselves plantation owners who held substantial numbers of enslaved individuals. The original Constitution not only preserved their right to own slaves but also conferred upon them a distinct political advantage derived from slave ownership. Although enslaved people in the early Republic were considered sentient property, were denied the right to vote, and possessed virtually no legal rights, they were included in population censuses. For the purpose of apportioning representation in the national legislature, the U.S. Congress , they were counted as three-fifths of a person.

Slaves and free blacks who supported the Continental Army

This postage stamp, commemorating the Bicentennial, honors Salem Poor , an enslaved African-American man who purchased his freedom, subsequently enlisted as a soldier, and achieved renown as a war hero during the Battle of Bunker Hill . [25]

The revolutionary forces began to offer freedom as an incentive to encourage slaves to join their ranks. General Washington authorized the enlistment of slaves who fought alongside the American Continental Army . Rhode Island initiated the enlistment of slaves in 1778, promising compensation to owners whose slaves enlisted and survived to gain their freedom. [26] [27] Throughout the war, approximately one-fifth of the Northern army was comprised of Black soldiers. [28] In 1781, Baron Closen, a German officer serving with the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment at the Battle of Yorktown , estimated that the American army was roughly one-quarter Black. [29] These individuals included both formerly enslaved people and free-born Black individuals. Thousands of free Black individuals residing in the Northern states served in the state militias and the Continental Army. In the South, both the Continental and British forces extended offers of freedom to slaves who would render military service. It is estimated that approximately 20,000 slaves participated in the American Revolution. [25] [30] [31] [32] [33]

Black Loyalists

Following the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the British, facing a shortage of manpower, began issuing proclamations to slaves owned by American Patriots, offering them freedom in exchange for their support of the British war effort. [34] These proclamations were issued repeatedly throughout the conflict, resulting in an estimated 100,000 American slaves defecting to British lines. [35] Self-emancipated slaves who reached British lines were organized into various military units and served in all theaters of the war. Formerly enslaved women and children, unable to participate in military service, instead contributed as laborers and domestic servants. At the conclusion of the war, freed slaves who had sought refuge with the British either evacuated to other British colonies or to Britain itself, were re-enslaved by the victorious Americans, or dispersed into the countryside. [36]

Memorial to Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment of Black Loyalists , whose uniforms bore the inscription “Liberty to Slaves.”

In early 1775, Lord Dunmore , the royal governor of Virginia, communicated his intention to the Earl of Dartmouth to emancipate slaves owned by American Patriots should they initiate a rebellion. [37] [38] On November 7, 1775, Dunmore issued Dunmore’s Proclamation , which guaranteed freedom to any slaves of American patriots who abandoned their masters and joined the British forces. [39] Historians generally agree that the proclamation’s primary motivation was pragmatic rather than moral, and slaves belonging to American Loyalists remained unaffected. Approximately 1,500 slaves owned by patriots escaped and joined Dunmore’s ranks. Among those who defected was Harry, an enslaved valet belonging to George Washington , who served in Dunmore’s exclusively Black loyalist regiment, known as “the Black Pioneers.” [40] Escapees who joined Dunmore’s forces had the words “Liberty to Slaves” emblazoned on their clothing. [41] While many succumbed to disease before engaging in combat, an estimated three hundred of these freed slaves successfully reached freedom in Britain. [42] Historian Jill Lepore suggests that “between eighty and a hundred thousand (nearly one in five black slaves) left their homes… betting on British victory,” although Cassandra Pybus posits a more realistic figure of 20,000 to 30,000 slaves who defected to the British during the war. [40]

Numerous slaves seized the opportunity presented by the disruption of the war to escape from their plantations, seeking refuge with British lines or blending into the general population. Upon sighting British vessels, thousands of slaves in Maryland and Virginia fled their enslavers. [43] : 21  Slave losses were substantial throughout the South, largely attributable to escapes. [44] Slaves also escaped from New England and the mid-Atlantic regions, with many joining the British forces occupying New York. [40] In the final stages of the war, the British evacuated freedmen and also removed slaves belonging to loyalists. Approximately 15,000 black loyalists departed with the British, with the majority eventually settling as free individuals in England or its colonies. [45] General Washington, who had employed a slave catcher during the war, pressed the British at its conclusion to return the escaped slaves to their owners. [40] Carrying British certificates of freedom, these Black loyalists, including Washington’s slave Harry, sailed from New York Harbor to Nova Scotia alongside their white counterparts. [40] Over 3,000 were resettled in Nova Scotia, where they were eventually granted land and established the community of the Black Nova Scotians .

Early abolitionism in the United States

In the initial two decades following the American Revolution, state legislatures and private individuals took steps to liberate enslaved individuals. Northern states adopted new constitutions that incorporated language regarding equal rights or explicitly abolished slavery. Several states, including New York and New Jersey, where slavery was more prevalent, enacted legislation by the end of the 18th century to gradually abolish the institution. By 1804, all Northern states had enacted laws prohibiting slavery, either immediately or over time. In New York, the final emancipation of slaves occurred in 1827, an event commemorated with a significant parade on July 5. [46]

No Southern state moved to abolish slavery, though a number of individual slaveholders did free their enslaved people through personal decisions, often by including provisions for manumission in their wills or by executing deeds and court documents to effectuate individual emancipations. Numerous slaveholders who freed their slaves cited revolutionary ideals in their legal documents; others offered freedom as a promised reward for service. Between 1790 and 1810, the proportion of blacks who were free in the United States increased from 8 to 13.5 percent, and in the Upper South , this proportion rose from less than one percent to nearly ten percent as a direct result of these actions. [47] [48] [49]

Beginning in 1777, states sequentially outlawed the importation of slaves. While all acted to end the international trade, following the war, it was reopened in North Carolina (until 1794), Georgia (until 1798), and South Carolina (initially until 1787, then reopened in 1803). [50] In 1807, acting on the recommendation of President Thomas Jefferson , Congress, without significant controversy, criminalized the importation of slaves from abroad, effective January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution for such a prohibition. [51]

During the Revolution and the subsequent years, all states situated north of Maryland, demarcated by the Mason–Dixon line , took steps toward abolishing slavery. In 1777, the independent Vermont Republic adopted a state constitution that prohibited slavery . The Pennsylvania Abolition Society , with significant leadership from Benjamin Franklin , was established in 1775, and Pennsylvania commenced its process of gradual abolition in 1780. In 1783, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled in Commonwealth v. Jennison that slavery was unconstitutional under the state’s newly adopted 1780 constitution . New Hampshire initiated gradual emancipation in 1783, followed by Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784. The New York Manumission Society , led by prominent figures such as John Jay , Alexander Hamilton , and Aaron Burr , was founded in 1785. New York State began its process of gradual emancipation in 1799, and New Jersey followed suit in 1804.

In 1787, the Northwest Territory was established by the Continental Congress, and it explicitly excluded slavery. This territory subsequently formed the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, along with a portion of Minnesota, effectively doubling the size of the United States. As each new state drafted its constitution, slavery was prohibited, although Illinois permitted the temporary presence of slaves brought in by their owners. [52] [53]

Constitution of the United States

An advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette of May 24, 1796, seeking the return of Oney Judge , a fugitive slave who had escaped from the household of George Washington .

Slavery constituted a deeply contentious issue during the drafting and ratification of the Constitution of the United States . [54] While the specific words “slave” and “slavery” were omitted from the Constitution as originally adopted, several provisions implicitly addressed the existence of slaves and the practice of slavery. The Constitution did not explicitly prohibit slavery until the adoption of the 13th Amendment in 1865. [55]

Section 9 of Article I restricted the federal government’s ability to prohibit the importation of slaves, referred to as “such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit,” for a period of twenty years following the Constitution’s ratification, effectively until January 1, 1808. The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 , passed by Congress and signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson —who had called for its enactment in his 1806 State of the Union address—took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date on which the importation of slaves could be legally prohibited under the Constitution. [56]

The delegates approved the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution (Article IV, section 2, clause 3 ), which prohibited states from granting freedom to those “held to Service or Labour” (a phrase encompassing slaves, indentured servants, and apprentices) who escaped to their jurisdiction from another state, and mandated their return to their owners. [57] The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the subsequent Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 provided the legislative framework for enforcing the Fugitive Slave Clause. [58] Salmon P. Chase contended that the Fugitive Slave Acts were unconstitutional, arguing that “The Fugitive Slave Clause was a compact among the states, not a grant of power to the federal government.” [59]

Three-fifths Compromise

John Trumbull’s 1780 portrait of George Washington also depicts what is believed to be Washington’s enslaved valet, William Lee (Metropolitan Museum of Art 24.109.88).

In a provision negotiated by James Madison of Virginia, Section 2 of Article I stipulated that “other persons” (referring to slaves) would be added to the total free population of a state at a rate of three-fifths of their aggregate number. This calculation was used to determine a state’s official population for the apportionment of congressional representation and the assessment of federal taxation. [60] The “Three-Fifths Compromise” was reached following a debate wherein delegates from Southern (slaveholding) states argued for the inclusion of slaves in the census enumeration on par with all other persons, while delegates from Northern (free) states countered that slaves should not be counted at all. The compromise significantly bolstered the political power of Southern states, as three-fifths of the non-voting slave population was factored into congressional apportionment and the Electoral College . However, this provision did not grant Southern states as much power as a full enumeration would have provided.

Furthermore, the Southern economy was deeply intertwined with many regions of the country. As historian James Oliver Horton observed, influential politicians from slaveholding states and the prominent commodity crops of the South exerted considerable sway over United States politics and its economy. Horton noted:

In the 72 years between the election of George Washington and the election of Abraham Lincoln, 50 of those years [had] a slaveholder as president of the United States , and, for that whole period of time, there was never a person elected to a second term who was not a slaveholder. [61]

The political dominance of Southern states in Congress persisted until the Civil War , significantly influencing national policies, legislation, and appointments. A notable consequence was that the majority of justices appointed to the Supreme Court were slave owners. The planter elite exerted control over Southern congressional delegations and the United States presidency for nearly half a century. [61] This resulted in a political climate where the expansion and protection of slavery were consistently prioritized.

Slavery in the 19th century

Advertisement in the Louisiana State Gazette (New Orleans, November 1, 1819) offering slaves for sale, alongside livestock, illustrating the commodification of human beings in early America.

According to demographic calculations by J. David Hacker of the University of Minnesota, approximately four out of every five slaves ever transported to or born within the United States, including territories that later became part of the nation (from 1619 onwards), arrived or were born in the 19th century. [62] While enslaved labor formed the backbone of the Southern economy, slave ownership—along with the dispossession and expulsion of Native Americans from their ancestral lands—also served as the foundational element upon which American white supremacy was constructed. [63] Historian Walter Johnson posits that “one of the miraculous things a slave could do was make a household white…”, suggesting that the value of whiteness in America was, in part, measured by the capacity to acquire and maintain Black slaves. [64]

Slavery in the United States was a dynamic institution, characterized by “constant flux, driven by the violent pursuit of ever-larger profits.” [65] While often stereotyped as solely engaged in field labor for the production of cash crops like sugar and cotton, the enslaved labor force of the United States performed a vast array of skilled labor demanded by the economy. An analysis of 1200 advertisements for runaway slaves published in Tennessee revealed individuals skilled as blacksmiths (25), carpenters (18), and shoemakers (13), in addition to barbers, boat builders, bricklayers, cooks, coopers, cotton mill engineers, dressmakers (often referred to as mantua-makers), hack drivers, iron furnace engineers, milliners, millwrights, ministers, musicians (particularly violinists), racehorse trainers, ostlers, plasterers, painters, seamstresses, stonemasons, tanners, wagoners, waiters, and weavers. One advertisement even listed a “turner and tin-plate workman.” It is important to recognize, however, that slavery in the United States was not a “deferred-compensation trade school opportunity.” [67] Harriet Beecher Stowe, in 1853, offered a poignant summary of American slavery: [68]

What, then, is American slavery, as we have seen it exhibited by law, and by the decision of Courts? Let us begin by stating what it is not:

  1. It is not apprenticeship.
  2. It is not guardianship.
  3. It is in no sense a system for the education of a weaker race by a stronger.
  4. The happiness of the governed is in no sense its object.
  5. The temporal improvement or the eternal well-being of the governed is in no sense its object.

The object of it has been distinctly stated in one sentence by Judge Ruffin ,— “The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety.”

Slavery, then, is absolute despotism, of the most unmitigated form.

Justifications in the South

One of the primary justifications offered for American slavery was the concept of “benevolent paternalism ”, which posited that the planters’ benevolent stewardship was both beneficial and necessary for the enslaved population. [69] [70] [71] (Detail from the Anti-Slavery Almanac , 1840).

American slavery as “a necessary evil”

During the 19th century, proponents of slavery frequently defended the institution as a “necessary evil.” At that time, there was a prevailing fear that the emancipation of Black slaves would precipitate more detrimental social and economic consequences than the continuation of slavery itself. On April 22, 1820, Thomas Jefferson , a seminal figure among the Founding Fathers of the United States , articulated this sentiment in a letter to John Holmes :

We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. [72]

The French writer and traveler Alexis de Tocqueville , in his seminal work Democracy in America (1835), expressed his opposition to slavery while simultaneously observing its pervasive effects on American society. He contended that a multiracial society devoid of slavery was untenable, believing that prejudice against Black individuals intensified as they were granted greater rights, particularly in Northern states. He further posited that the prevailing attitudes of white Southerners, coupled with the concentration of the Black population in the South, were leading both racial groups toward a precarious equilibrium, posing a danger to both. Due to the inherent racial distinctions between master and slave, he concluded that the latter could not be effectively emancipated. [73]

In a letter to his wife dated December 27, 1856, in response to a communication from President Franklin Pierce , Robert E. Lee wrote:

There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. [74] [75]

American slavery as “a positive good”

A Confederate $100 bill from 1862–63 depicts slaves laboring in fields. Over 125 meticulously crafted etchings of working slaves were featured on currency issued by Southern banks and the Confederate States in the 19th century, providing a visual reassurance that slavery was “protected both by law and by tradition.” [77] In 1860, Southern slaveholders collectively held slaves valued at over $3 billion (equivalent to approximately $97 billion in 2022) as personal property. [79] (National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History ). A slave shackle discovered during excavation on Baronne Street in New Orleans was donated to the Kid Ory Historic House museum.

However, as the agitation from the abolitionist movement intensified and the cultivation of plantations expanded, justifications for slavery in the South grew more pronounced. Leaders began to characterize slavery as a beneficial system of labor management. John C. Calhoun , in a significant speech delivered in the Senate in 1837, declared that slavery was, “instead of an evil, a good—a positive good.” Calhoun supported this assertion with several arguments: he contended that in every civilized society, a segment of the community must subsist on the labor of another; that learning, science, and the arts are predicated on leisure; that the African slave, treated kindly by their masters and provided for in old age, fared better than free laborers in Europe; and that the slave system effectively precluded conflicts between capital and labor. He concluded that the advantages of slavery in this regard “will become more and more manifest, if left undisturbed by interference from without, as the country advances in wealth and numbers.” [80]

Newspaper advertisements for New Orleans slave depots located at Barrone and Gravier Streets, and at addresses 54, 58, 68, and 78 Barrone, represent only a fraction of the slave trade activities within the city. [81] ( New Orleans Crescent, January 10, 1861).

James Gadsden, a South Carolina army officer, planter , and railroad executive, referred to slavery as “a social blessing” and abolitionists as “the greatest curse of the nation.” [82] Gadsden advocated for South Carolina’s secession in 1850 and played a leading role in efforts to divide California into two states, one slave and one free.

Other Southern writers, including James Henry Hammond and George Fitzhugh , also began to promote the idea of slavery as a positive good, presenting various arguments to defend the practice in the South. [83] Hammond, echoing Calhoun’s sentiments, believed that slavery was essential for the advancement of society. In a speech to the Senate on March 4, 1858, Hammond articulated his “Mudsill Theory,” defending his stance on slavery by stating: “Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill.” Hammond argued that in every societal structure, one group must perform all the menial tasks to enable the leaders of society to progress. [83] He contended that the hired laborers of the North were themselves effectively enslaved, stating, “The difference…is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment,” whereas those in the North were compelled to seek employment. [83]

George Fitzhugh justified slavery based on assumptions of white superiority, writing that, “the Negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as a child.” In The Universal Law of Slavery, Fitzhugh argued that slavery provided all necessities for life and that the enslaved individual, characterized as lazy and incapable of competing with the intellectually superior European white race, could not survive in a free society. He asserted that “The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world.” [84] He further claimed that without the South, the enslaved person “would become an insufferable burden to society” and that “Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery.” [84]

On March 21, 1861, Alexander Stephens , the Vice President of the Confederacy, delivered his Cornerstone Speech . In this address, he elucidated the distinctions between the Constitution of the Confederate States and the United States Constitution , outlined what he perceived as the fundamental causes of the American Civil War, and defended the institution of slavery: [85]

The new [Confederate] Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away… Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the “storm came and the wind blew, it fell”.

Our new [Confederate] Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. [85]

This perspective on the “Negro race” was supported by pseudoscience . [86] Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright , a Southerner and proponent of these theories, developed the diagnoses of drapetomania (described as the desire of a slave to escape) and dysaesthesia aethiopica (“rascality”), both of which he claimed could be cured by whipping. The Medical Association of Louisiana established a committee, with Cartwright as its chair, to investigate “the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race.” Their report, initially presented to the Association, was published in their journal in 1851, [87] and subsequently reprinted in part in the widely circulated DeBow’s Review . [88]

American Slavery as a Cornerstone of World Economics

Many Southern Americans defended the institution of slavery as an indispensable component of the global economic system. Central to this belief was the ideology of King Cotton —the notion that industrial economies worldwide, particularly in Britain and France, were heavily reliant on the South’s cotton exports, which were made affordable through enslaved labor. Consequently, Southern leaders such as Senator John A. Winston asserted in 1857 that “the suspension of involuntary servitude for a single year only, would cause convulsions in all the governments of the civilized world, the disastrous results of which, it would be beyond human ken to foresee.” [89]

Southerners frequently cited the economic disruptions experienced by Britain, France, and Denmark following emancipation as evidence of slavery’s critical importance. Some even speculated that these nations might reverse their abolitionist policies due to market pressures. [90] The British repeal of protectionist tariffs on slave-grown sugar in 1846, coupled with Europe’s broader embrace of free trade in the 1850s, was interpreted by many Southerners as an implicit acknowledgment that slave-based commodities remained essential to the global economy. [90]

Southern Attempts to Expand Slavery

Throughout the 19th century, numerous white Southerners actively sought to extend the institution of slavery into new territories. Texas stands as a prime example of this endeavor. Anglo-American settlers in Texas declared independence from Mexico in March 1836 and subsequently defeated the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto . A principal motivation for this declaration of independence was the preservation of slavery, which had been abolished by the Mexican government. Following a decade of protracted political debate within the United States, Texas was annexed in 1845 .

However, the majority of attempts to expand slavery ultimately proved unsuccessful. Efforts to extend slavery into territories acquired during the Mexican Cession encountered significant resistance, culminating in the Compromise of 1850 . Several high-profile expansionist initiatives, such as the Ostend Manifesto —a proposal to annex Cuba as a slave state —and Narciso López’s filibustering expeditions to Cuba, failed to achieve their objectives. Ambitions also extended to expanding slavery into Mexico, Nicaragua (refer to Walker Affair and Filibuster War ), and other parts of Latin America, as envisioned within the proposed “Golden Circle ” territory. The dark green shading on the map indicates the extent of the Golden Circle , a proposed empire for American slave owners.

Some other controversial proposals included:

  • Actively seeking to reopen the transatlantic slave trade . [91]
  • Financing illegal slave shipments from the Caribbean and Africa, exemplified by the Wanderer slave shipment to Georgia in 1858. [92]
  • Advocating for the reintroduction of slavery in Northern states through federal action or a Constitutional amendment that would legalize slavery nationwide, thereby superseding state-level anti-slavery statutes. [93] [94] (See also Crittenden Compromise .) This objective was described as being “well underway” by 1858. [95]
  • Publicly asserting that slavery should not be confined to Black individuals, as they believed it to be inherently beneficial. Northern white laborers, allegedly “wage slaves ,” would purportedly experience improved lives if enslaved. [96]

While these proposals did not gain significant traction, they served to alarm Northerners and contributed to the escalating polarization of the nation.

Abolitionism in the North

Slavery is a volcano, the fires of which cannot be quenched, nor its ravishes controlled. We already feel its convulsions, and if we sit idly gazing upon its flames, as they rise higher and higher, our happy republic will be buried in ruin, beneath its overwhelming energies.

— William Ellsworth , attorney for Prudence Crandall , 1834 [97] : 193–194 

A collection of 19th-century American abolitionists: Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison (with British abolitionist George Thompson ), William Wells Brown , Frederick Douglass , a 1851 meeting of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (including Oliver Johnson , Mary Grew , Robert Purvis , and Lucretia Mott ), John Brown , and Harriet Tubman .

Beginning during the Revolution and continuing through the first two decades of the postwar era, every Northern state enacted measures to abolish slavery, marking the initial abolitionist legislation in the Atlantic World . [98] [99] However, the abolition of slavery did not automatically confer freedom upon all existing enslaved individuals. In certain states, they were compelled to remain with their former owners as indentured servants , legally free but practically bound, although they could not be sold, thus preventing the separation of families, and their children were born free. Slavery’s abolition was not fully realized in New York until July 4, 1827, celebrated the following day with a significant parade. [100] Nevertheless, the 1830 census indicated that Vermont was the sole state without any recorded slaves. In the 1840 census , slaves were still reported in New Hampshire (1), Rhode Island (5), Connecticut (17), New York (4), Pennsylvania (64), Ohio (3), Indiana (3), Illinois (331), Iowa (16), and Wisconsin (11). By the 1850 census , however, there were no reported slaves in these states. [101]

The majority of Northern states implemented legislation for gradual abolition, commencing with the emancipation of children born to enslaved mothers. These children were typically required to serve lengthy indentures to their mother’s owners, often extending into their early twenties. In 1845, the Supreme Court of New Jersey heard extensive arguments concerning “the deliverance of four thousand persons from bondage.” [102] Pennsylvania’s final slave emancipations occurred in 1847, Connecticut’s in 1848. While New Hampshire and New Jersey had no reported slaves in the 1850 Census and only one and none, respectively, in the 1860 Census , slavery was never formally prohibited in either state until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865. [103] (New Jersey was notably one of the last states to ratify this amendment).

No Southern state abolished slavery prior to 1865; however, it was not uncommon for individual slaveholders in the South to manumit numerous slaves through their wills, often citing revolutionary ideals. Ministers from Methodist , Quaker , and Baptist denominations traveled throughout the South, urging slaveholders to free their enslaved individuals, and “manumission societies” existed in several Southern states. By 1810, the number and proportion of free Black individuals in the United States population had increased significantly. While the majority of free Black individuals resided in the North, even in the Upper South, the proportion of free Black individuals within the total Black population rose from less than one percent in 1792 to over ten percent by 1810, even as the overall number of slaves was increasing due to imports. [104]

Samuel Sewall, an abolitionist and associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature , the highest court in Massachusetts. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts).

African slaves first arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s, and slavery was legally sanctioned by the Puritans in 1641. [105] Residents of Massachusetts actively participated in the slave trade, and laws were enacted to regulate the movement and marriage of enslaved individuals. [105] In 1700, Samuel Sewall , a Puritan abolitionist and associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature , published The Selling of Joseph, a work in which he condemned slavery and the slave trade, and refuted many of the prevailing justifications for the practice. [106] [107] The Puritan influence on the discourse surrounding slavery remained potent during the American Revolution and persisted until the Civil War. Of the first seven presidents of the United States, the two who did not own slaves, John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams , hailed from Puritan New England. Despite possessing the financial means to own slaves, they abstained from doing so due to their moral objections to the practice. In 1765, colonial leader Samuel Adams and his wife were presented with a slave girl as a gift, whom they immediately freed.

Representative and politician Joshua Reed Giddings faced censure ([List of United States representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded]) in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1842 for introducing an anti-slavery resolution deemed incendiary and in violation of the House’s gag rule that prohibited discussions on slavery. [108]

In the decades preceding the Civil War, abolitionists such as Theodore Parker , Ralph Waldo Emerson , Henry David Thoreau , and Frederick Douglass consistently invoked the Puritan heritage of the nation to bolster their cause. The Liberator, the most radical anti-slavery newspaper of the era, referenced the Puritans and their values over a thousand times. Parker, in urging New England congressmen to support the abolition of slavery, declared that “The son of the Puritan… is sent to Congress to stand up for Truth and Right…” [109] [110]

Northerners predominantly migrated westward into the Midwestern territories following the American Revolution. As these territories were organized into states, they voted to prohibit slavery in their constitutions upon achieving statehood: Ohio in 1803, Indiana in 1816, and Illinois in 1818. This process led to the formation of a contiguous bloc of Northern free states that generally shared an anti-slavery ethos. Exceptions existed in areas along the Ohio River settled by Southerners, specifically the southern portions of Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Residents of these areas typically mirrored Southern culture and attitudes. Furthermore, these regions remained dedicated to agriculture for a longer period than the industrializing northern sectors of these states, and some farmers utilized slave labor. In Illinois, for instance, while the trade in slaves was prohibited, it was permissible to bring slaves from Kentucky into Illinois and employ them there, provided the slaves departed Illinois annually for one day (effectively a “visit”). The emancipation of slaves in the North contributed to a significant increase in the free Black population, rising from several hundred in the 1770s to nearly 50,000 by 1810. [111]

Simon Legree and Uncle Tom: a scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), a highly influential abolitionist novel.

Throughout the first half of the 19th century, abolitionism, a movement dedicated to ending slavery, gained considerable momentum, with the majority of abolitionist societies and supporters concentrated in the North. They actively worked to raise public awareness regarding the injustices of slavery and to garner support for its abolition. Following 1830, abolitionist and newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison championed emancipation, characterizing slaveholding as a personal sin and demanding that slaveholders repent and initiate the process of emancipation. This stance provoked increased defensiveness among some Southerners, who highlighted the long historical presence of slavery across various cultures. A minority of abolitionists, such as John Brown , advocated for the use of armed force to incite slave uprisings, as he attempted at Harper’s Ferry . The majority of abolitionists, however, focused on mobilizing public support to effect legislative change and challenge existing slave laws. Abolitionists were active on the lecture circuit throughout the North, frequently featuring escaped slaves in their presentations. The writer and orator Frederick Douglass emerged as a prominent abolitionist leader after escaping from slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) achieved international bestseller status and, along with its non-fiction companion, A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin , galvanized popular sentiment against slavery. [112] This literary work also spurred the publication of numerous anti-Tom novels by Southerners in the years leading up to the American Civil War.

A map illustrating known Underground Railroad routes, compiled by a historian in 1898.

This struggle unfolded against a backdrop of staunch support for slavery among white Southerners, who derived substantial profits from the system of enslaved labor. However, slavery was deeply interwoven with the national economy; for example, industries such as banking, shipping, insurance, and manufacturing in New York City, as well as similar enterprises in other major Northern port cities, held significant economic stakes in slavery. Northern textile mills in New York and New England processed Southern cotton and manufactured clothing for enslaved individuals. By 1822, half of New York City’s exports were directly related to cotton. [113]

Slaveholders began to employ the term “peculiar institution” to distinguish their system from other forms of forced labor , often justifying it as less cruel than the conditions faced by free laborers in the North.

A page from The Anti-Slavery Alphabet (1846–1849).

The primary organized bodies advocating for abolition and anti-slavery reforms in the North were the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and the New York Manumission Society . Prior to the 1830s, anti-slavery groups generally advocated for gradual emancipation. [114] By the late 1820s, influenced by religious evangelicals such as Beriah Green , a sentiment emerged that slave ownership constituted a sin, and slaveholders had a moral obligation to achieve immediate emancipation. [115]

Prohibiting the international trade

Shipping news from Charleston in December 1805 documented the arrival of 900 newly imported enslaved Africans from the Gold Coast , Windward Coast , and Bonny , alongside cotton shipments destined for Liverpool . The manifests also included deliveries of salampore cloth, which was traded for “prime negroes” in regions of Africa where Islamic dietary laws rendered American rum undesirable. [116]

Under the Constitution, Congress was barred from prohibiting the slave trade until 1808. However, the third Congress enacted regulations against it through the Slave Trade Act of 1794 , which prohibited American shipbuilding and outfitting for the trade. Subsequent acts in 1800 and 1803 aimed to discourage the trade by forbidding American investment in it and the employment of Americans on slave ships, as well as prohibiting importation into states that had abolished slavery, a status held by all states except South Carolina by 1807. [117] [118] The final Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves was passed in 1807 and became effective in 1808. Nevertheless, the smuggling of African slaves continued to be prevalent. [4] The Cuban slave trade between 1796 and 1807 was largely dominated by American slave ships. Despite the 1794 Act, owners of Rhode Island slave ships found ways to persist in supplying the slaveholding states. In 1806, the overall U.S. slave-ship fleet was estimated to be nearly 75% the size of the British fleet. [119] : 63, 65 

Following the outlawing of the international slave trade by Great Britain and the United States in 1807, British efforts to suppress the trade commenced in 1808 through diplomatic channels and the establishment of the Royal Navy ’s West Africa Squadron in 1809. The United States denied the Royal Navy the right to stop and search U.S. ships suspected of engaging in the slave trade, thereby allowing American ships to operate unhindered by British patrols. Furthermore, slavers from other nations would fly the American flag to evade detection. Cooperation between the United States and Great Britain was hampered during the War of 1812 and the subsequent period of strained relations. In 1820, the United States Navy dispatched the USS Cyane, under the command of Captain Edward Trenchard , to patrol the slave coasts of West Africa. The Cyane seized four American slave ships within its first year of operation. Captain Trenchard established a cooperative relationship with the Royal Navy. Four additional U.S. warships were deployed to the African coast in 1820 and 1821, resulting in the capture of eleven American slave ships by the U.S. Navy during this period. Subsequently, American enforcement activities diminished. Critically, no agreement was reached between the United States and Great Britain regarding a mutual right to board suspected slave traders sailing under each other’s flags. Attempts to forge such an agreement faltered in the United States Senate in 1821 and 1824. However, the sporadic U.S. Navy presence did contribute to American slavers operating under the Spanish flag, albeit still as a significant trade. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 formalized a minimum level of patrol activity by both the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy, codifying the level of cooperation that had existed in 1820. The treaty’s impact, however, was limited, [b] and opportunities for enhanced cooperation were not pursued. The suppression of the U.S. transatlantic slave trade was not effectively achieved until 1861, during President Lincoln’s administration, when a treaty with Great Britain was concluded, granting the Royal Navy the authority to board, search, and arrest slavers operating under the American flag. [119] : 399–400, 449, 1144, 1149  [120]

War of 1812

Andrew Jackson and the slave trade in the United States : Jackson, soon to be the “Hero of New Orleans,” explains the cost associated with transporting a shipment of slaves to Natchez for sale. (The Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, 1926).

During the War of 1812 , British Royal Navy commanders were instructed to offer freedom to American slaves who defected, mirroring the practice during the Revolutionary War. Thousands of escaped slaves sought refuge with the Crown, bringing their families with them. [121] These men were recruited into the Corps of Colonial Marines stationed on Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay . Many freed American slaves were directly integrated into existing West Indian regiments or newly formed British Army units. Subsequently, the British facilitated the resettlement of several thousand freed slaves in Nova Scotia. Their descendants, along with those of Black Loyalists resettled there after the Revolution, established the Black Loyalist Heritage Museum. [122]

Slaveholders, predominantly in the South, experienced significant “loss of property” as thousands of slaves escaped to British lines or ships in pursuit of freedom, despite the inherent risks. [122] The complacency of planters regarding slave “contentment” was profoundly shaken by the realization of their slaves’ willingness to risk so much for liberty. [122] Later, when some freed slaves were settled in Bermuda , slaveholders such as Major Pierce Butler of South Carolina attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade them to return to the United States.

The Americans lodged protests, asserting that Britain’s failure to return all slaves constituted a violation of the Treaty of Ghent . Following arbitration by the Tsar of Russia , the British paid $1,204,960 in damages (approximately $33.5 million in contemporary currency) to Washington, which served as reimbursement to the slaveowners. [123]

Slave rebellions

The discovery of Nat Turner in 1831, depicted in an 1881 wood-engraving by William Henry Shelton (wd).

According to Herbert Aptheker, “there were few phases of ante-bellum Southern life and history that were not in some way influenced by the fear of, or the actual outbreak of, militant concerted slave action.” [124]

Historians in the 20th century identified between 250 and 311 slave uprisings in U.S. and colonial history. [125] Those occurring after 1776 include:

In 1831, Nat Turner , an educated slave who claimed to receive spiritual visions , organized a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia , which was sometimes referred to as the Southampton Insurrection. Turner and his followers were responsible for the deaths of nearly sixty white inhabitants, predominantly women and children. Many men from the region were attending a religious event in North Carolina at the time. [130] Turner and 17 of his fellow rebels were eventually captured and subdued by the militia. [130] Turner and his followers were hanged , and Turner’s body was flayed . In a subsequent wave of fear and retaliation, the militia killed over 100 slaves who had not participated in the rebellion. Planters resorted to whipping hundreds of innocent slaves to ensure the suppression of any resistance. [130]

This rebellion prompted Virginia and other slave states to implement more stringent restrictions on enslaved people and free people of color, regulating their movement and increasing white supervision of gatherings. In 1835, North Carolina rescinded the franchise for free people of color, effectively disenfranchising them.

There are four documented mutinies aboard vessels involved in the coastwise slave trade: Decatur (1826), Governor Strong (1826), Lafayette (1829), and the Creole (1841). [131]

Post-revolution Southern manumissions

Manumission papers for Phillis Murray, a Black woman approximately 25 years old, signed by William Glasgow on December 31, 1833 (Missouri History Museum ).

Although Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware were slave states, the latter two already had a significant proportion of free Black residents by the commencement of the war. Following the Revolution, the legislatures of these three states eased manumission regulations, permitting emancipation through deeds or wills. Quaker and Methodist ministers, in particular, encouraged slaveholders to free their enslaved individuals. The number and proportion of freed slaves in these states rose dramatically until 1810. More than half of the free Black population in the United States was concentrated in the Upper South. The proportion of free Black individuals within the total Black population in the Upper South increased from less than one percent in 1792 to over ten percent by 1810. [104] In Delaware, nearly 75 percent of Black individuals were free by 1810. [132]

Nationally, the number of free Black individuals reached 186,446, constituting 13.5 percent of the entire Black population by 1810. [133] Following this period, manumissions significantly declined, as the expansion of cotton plantations cultivating short-staple cotton in the Deep South fueled a surge in the domestic demand for slaves and drove up their prices. [134]

Alabama enacted a ban on free Black individuals residing within the state starting in 1834; free people of color who crossed the state line were subject to enslavement. [135] In Arkansas, after 1843, free Black individuals were required to post a $500 good-behavior bond, and no unenslaved Black person was legally permitted to immigrate to the state. [136]

Female slave owners

Despite coverture laws that transferred the property of married women to their husbands, married women retained the right to own and control human property without their husbands’ interference or consent, and they actively participated in the slave trade. [137] For instance, in South Carolina, 40% of bills of sale for slaves between the 18th century and the present included a female buyer or seller. [138] Women also governed their slaves in a manner comparable to men, employing similar levels of physical discipline. Like their male counterparts, they initiated legal actions against individuals who jeopardized their ownership of slaves. [139]

Black slave owners

Despite the enduring racial segregation in the United States, a segment of African Americans themselves became slave owners, residing both in cities and on rural plantations. [140] Slave ownership signified both wealth and elevated social standing. [140] However, Black slave owners were relatively uncommon, as “of the two and a half million African Americans living in the United States in 1850, the vast majority [were] enslaved.” [140]

Native American slave owners

After 1800, some members of the Cherokee and the other Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast began acquiring and utilizing Black slaves for labor. They continued this practice following their forced removal to Indian Territory in the 1830s, taking approximately 15,000 enslaved Black individuals with them. [141]

The nature of slavery within Cherokee society often mirrored that of white slave-owning society. Cherokee law prohibited intermarriage between Cherokees and enslaved African Americans, yet Cherokee men engaged in unions with enslaved women, resulting in mixed-race offspring. [142] [143] Cherokees who aided escaped slaves faced punishment of one hundred lashes on the back. Within Cherokee society, individuals of African descent were barred from holding office, even if they were culturally and racially Cherokee. They were also prohibited from bearing arms and owning property. The Cherokee enforced laws against teaching African Americans to read and write. [144] [145]

In contrast, the Seminole welcomed into their nation African Americans who had escaped from slavery, known as Black Seminoles . Historically, the Black Seminoles primarily resided in distinct communities adjacent to the Native American Seminole. Some were held in bondage by specific Seminole leaders. Seminole practices in Florida acknowledged slavery, though not the chattel slavery model prevalent elsewhere; it more closely resembled feudal dependency and taxation. [146] [147] [148] The relationship between Seminole Blacks and Seminole Natives evolved following their relocation in the 1830s to territory controlled by the Creek , who maintained a system of chattel slavery. Pro-slavery pressures from the Creek and pro-Creek Seminoles, along with slave raiding, prompted many Black Seminoles to escape to Mexico. [149] [150] [151] [152] [153]

High demand and smuggling

The U.S. brig Perry confronting the slave ship Martha off Ambriz on June 6, 1850 (lithograph by Sarony & Co., from Andrew H. Foote ’s Africa and the American Flag, 1854).

The United States Constitution , ratified in 1787, prevented Congress from prohibiting the importation of slaves for a period of twenty years. While various states enacted bans on the international slave trade during this period, by 1808, South Carolina remained the sole state that still permitted the importation of African slaves. Following 1808, legal importation ceased, though smuggling occurred via Spanish Florida and the disputed Gulf Coast region to the west. [161] : 48–49  [162] : 138  This route largely concluded after Florida transitioned to a U.S. territory in 1821 (though the slave ships Wanderer and Clotilda are exceptions).

The cessation of slave imports from abroad led to an increased reliance on domestic production. Virginia and Maryland experienced minimal new agricultural development, and their demand for slaves was primarily for replacements due to deaths. Natural reproduction rates more than adequately supplied these needs, resulting in a surplus of slaves in Virginia and Maryland. Their tobacco farms were considered “worn out” [163] and the climate was unsuitable for cotton or sugarcane cultivation. This surplus was further exacerbated by the encouragement of slave reproduction (though enslaved individuals lacked the legal right to marry). [164] Thomas Roderick Dew, a pro-slavery advocate from Virginia, wrote in 1832 that Virginia functioned as a “negro-raising state,” effectively producing slaves. [165] According to his estimates, Virginia exported “upwards of 6,000 slaves” annually in 1832, generating an estimated “wealth to Virginia.” [166] : 198  A newspaper report from 1836 indicated an export figure of 40,000, yielding an estimated annual revenue of $24,000,000 for Virginia. [166] [165] : 201  The demand for slaves was most pronounced in the southwestern regions of the country, encompassing Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and subsequently Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. These areas offered abundant land suitable for plantation agriculture, which was actively developed by young men with available capital . This represented an expansion of the white, propertied population, primarily comprising young men seeking fortune.

Cotton emerged as the most profitable crop for plantation cultivation in that climate. Its production was labor-intensive, and the most cost-effective labor source was enslaved individuals. Demand for slaves exceeded supply in the Southwest, leading to higher prices for productive slaves. As depicted in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (the original cabin, it is noted, was located in Maryland), the prospect of “selling South” was greatly feared. A recently publicized instance (in 2018) of this practice involves the 1838 sale by Jesuits of 272 slaves from Maryland to plantations in Louisiana, a transaction intended to benefit Georgetown University , which has been described as “ow[ing] its existence” to this transaction. [168] [169] [170]

The escalating international demand for cotton prompted many plantation owners to seek suitable land further west. Moreover, the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 revolutionized the cotton industry by enabling the profitable processing of short-staple cotton, which could be readily cultivated in the uplands. This innovation increased the daily cotton processing capacity by fiftyfold. At the conclusion of the War of 1812 , the nation’s cotton production was less than 300,000 bales. By 1820, this figure had risen to 600,000 bales, and by 1850, it reached 4,000,000 bales. The expansion of cotton cultivation across the Deep South was explosive, leading to a substantial increase in the demand for slave labor to support it. [171] Consequently, manumissions experienced a sharp decline throughout the South. [172]

The majority of slaves sold from the Upper South originated from Maryland , Virginia , and the Carolinas , where shifts in agricultural practices had reduced the demand for their labor and consequently the demand for slaves. Prior to 1810, the primary destinations for sold slaves were Kentucky and [Tennessee]. However, after 1810, the Deep South states of Georgia , Alabama , Mississippi , [Louisiana], and [Texas] received the largest numbers of slaves, becoming the heartland of “King Cotton.” [173] Concurrently, the Upper South states of Kentucky and Tennessee transitioned into states that exported slaves.

By 1815, the domestic slave trade had become a major economic activity in the United States, continuing until the 1860s. [174] Between 1830 and 1840, nearly 250,000 slaves were transported across state lines. [174] In the 1850s, over 193,000 enslaved individuals were moved, and historians estimate that approximately one million people participated in this forced migration, constituting a new “Middle Passage.” By 1860, the enslaved population in the United States had grown to four million. [174] Of the 1,515,605 free families residing in the fifteen slave states in 1860, nearly 400,000 owned slaves (approximately one in four, or 25%), [175] representing about 8% of all American families. [176]

Ashley’s Sack is a cloth artifact that recounts the separation of a mother and daughter during a slave sale. The sack, a parting gift from Ashley’s mother, Rose, contained a dress, a braid of her hair, pecans, and the poignant message, “my love always,” after Ashley, then a nine-year-old girl, had been sold. (Middleton Place Foundation, South Carolina).

The historian Ira Berlin aptly described this forced migration of slaves as the “Second Middle Passage,” noting its replication of many of the horrors associated with the original Middle Passage (the transatlantic transportation of slaves from Africa to North America). These slave sales resulted in the dissolution of numerous families and caused immense hardship. Berlin characterized this forced migration as the “central event” in the lives of slaves between the American Revolution and the Civil War, asserting that whether slaves were directly uprooted or lived in constant fear of involuntary relocation, “the massive deportation traumatized black people, both slave and free.” [177] Individuals lost their connections to families and kinship networks. Compounding the earlier practice of colonists assembling slaves from diverse tribal backgrounds, many enslaved Africans lost knowledge of their distinct tribal origins in Africa. The vast majority were descendants of families who had resided in the United States for many generations. [174]

The firm of Franklin and Armfield was a prominent entity in this trade. In the 1840s, approximately 300,000 slaves were transported, with Alabama and Mississippi each receiving about 100,000. During each decade between 1810 and 1860, at least 100,000 slaves were relocated from their states of origin. In the final decade preceding the Civil War, 250,000 slaves were transported. Michael Tadman, in his 1989 work Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South, indicated that 60–70% of inter-regional migrations were a consequence of slave sales. By 1820, a slave child in the Upper South faced a 30 percent likelihood of being sold South by 1860. [178] While the mortality rate for slaves during their journey to new destinations across the American South was lower than that experienced by captives transported across the Atlantic Ocean, the death rate nevertheless exceeded the normal mortality rate.

Slave traders transported two-thirds of the slaves who relocated westward. [179] Only a minority of these individuals moved with their families and existing masters. Slave traders demonstrated little interest in acquiring or transporting intact slave families; in the early years, planters primarily sought young male slaves required for arduous labor. Later, with the objective of establishing a “self-reproducing labor force,” planters procured nearly equal numbers of men and women. Berlin observed:

The internal slave trade became the largest enterprise in the South outside the plantation itself, and probably the most advanced in its employment of modern transportation, finance, and publicity. The slave trade industry developed its own unique language, with terms such as “prime hands, bucks, breeding wenches, and “fancy girls ” coming into common use. [180]

“Northern Industry” and “Southern Industry” prior to the American Civil War (from Scribner’s Popular History of the United States, 1896).

The expansion of the interstate slave trade contributed to the “economic revival of once depressed seaboard states” as demand accelerated the value of slaves available for sale. [181] Some traders opted for maritime transport, with the Norfolk to New Orleans route being the most common, but the majority of slaves were compelled to walk overland. Others were transported downriver from markets such as Louisville on the Ohio River and Natchez on the Mississippi. Traders established regular migration routes serviced by a network of slave pens, yards, and warehouses, which served as temporary holding facilities for the enslaved individuals. Additionally, other vendors provided clothing, food, and supplies for the slaves. As the journey progressed, some slaves were sold, and new ones were acquired. Berlin concluded, “In all, the slave trade, with its hubs and regional centers, its spurs and circuits, reached into every cranny of southern society. Few southerners, black or white, were untouched.” [182]

Upon arrival in their new locations, slaves encountered frontier conditions that differed significantly from the labor experiences in the Upper South. Clearing forests and establishing cultivation on virgin lands represented arduous and physically demanding work. A combination of inadequate nutrition, contaminated water sources, and exhaustion from both the journey and the labor weakened newly arrived slaves, leading to increased casualties. New plantations were frequently situated near riverbanks to facilitate transportation and travel. Mosquitoes and other environmental factors contributed to the spread of diseases, resulting in the deaths of many slaves who possessed only limited immunities to lowland ailments acquired in their previous residences. The mortality rate was so high during the initial years of establishing plantations in undeveloped areas that some planters preferred to utilize rented slaves whenever possible. [183]

The harsh conditions prevalent on the frontier exacerbated slave resistance, compelling owners and overseers to rely heavily on violence for control. Many of the slaves were unfamiliar with the demands of cotton cultivation and the rigorous “sunrise-to-sunset gang labor” required in their new circumstances. Slaves were subjected to far more intensive labor demands compared to their previous work in tobacco or wheat cultivation in the East. They had diminished opportunities and time to improve their living conditions by cultivating their own livestock or tending vegetable gardens for personal consumption or trade, as they had been able to do in the East. [184]

A broadside advertising an 1858 slave sale at the St. Louis Hotel in New Orleans (Museum of African American History and Culture 2011.155.305).

In Louisiana , French colonists had established sugar cane plantations and exported sugar as their primary commodity crop. Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, American settlers entered the state and became involved in sugar cultivation. Between 1810 and 1830, planters acquired slaves from the North, and the enslaved population increased from fewer than 10,000 to over 42,000. Planters favored young males, who constituted two-thirds of slave purchases. The labor involved in sugar cultivation was even more physically demanding than growing cotton. The predominantly young, unmarried male slave labor force contributed to the “especially savage” reliance on violence by owners. [185]

Crawford, Frazer & Co. , a slave trading business in Georgia , photographed by George N. Barnard shortly before the burning of Atlanta in 1864.

New Orleans emerged as a significant national hub for the slave market and port. Slaves were transported from there upriver via steamboat to plantations along the Mississippi River; the city also sold slaves who had been shipped downriver from markets such as Louisville. By 1840, the New Orleans slave market was the largest in North America. The city became the wealthiest and fourth-largest in the nation, largely due to the slave trade and its associated businesses. [64] The trading season typically ran from September to May, following the harvest period. [186]

The notion that slave traders were social outcasts with a low reputation, even within the South, was initially propagated by defensive Southerners and later by scholars like historian Ulrich B. Phillips . [187] Historian Frederic Bancroft , author of Slave-Trading in the Old South (1931), arrived at a contrary conclusion, finding that many traders held esteemed positions within their communities. [188] Steven Deyle, a contemporary researcher, argues that “the trader’s position in society was not unproblematic and owners who dealt with the trader felt the need to satisfy themselves that they acted honorably,” while Michael Tadman contends that the “trader as outcast’ operated at the level of propaganda,” noting that white slave owners almost universally professed a belief that slaves were not human beings like themselves, thereby dismissing the ethical implications of the slave trade as irrelevant. [187] Similarly, historian Charles Dew examined hundreds of letters written to slave traders and found virtually no evidence of guilt, shame, or contrition regarding the slave trade: “If you begin with the absolute belief in white supremacy—unquestioned white superiority/unquestioned black inferiority—everything falls neatly into place: the African is inferior racial ‘stock,’ living in sin and ignorance and barbarism and heathenism on the ‘Dark Continent’ until enslaved…Slavery thus miraculously becomes a form of ‘uplift’ for this supposedly benighted and brutish race of people. And once notions of white supremacy and black inferiority are in place in the American South, they are passed on from one generation to the next with all the certainty and inevitability of a genetic trait.” [189]

In the 1828 presidential election , candidate Andrew Jackson faced significant criticism from opponents who accused him of being a slave trader involved in the transaction of slaves in defiance of contemporary moral standards. [190]

Treatment

Peter , who was formerly enslaved on a cotton plantation along the Atchafalaya River , photographed in 1863 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana . Following his whipping, Peter’s wounds were salted, a common practice. [191] [192] The overseer who whipped Peter was dismissed by the slave owner, Capt. John Lyons . [193] (Original carte de visite by McPherson & Oliver).

The treatment of slaves in the United States varied considerably based on circumstances, time period, and location, but generally, it was characterized by brutality, particularly on plantations. Whippings and rape were routine occurrences. The power dynamics inherent in slavery corrupted many white individuals in positions of authority over slaves, with children also exhibiting cruelty. Masters and overseers resorted to physical punishment to enforce their will. Slaves were subjected to whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding, and imprisonment. Punishments were most frequently administered in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but instances of abuse were also carried out to reassert the dominance of the master or overseer over the slave. [194] Treatment was typically more severe on large plantations, which were often managed by overseers and owned by absentee slaveholders, conditions that facilitated abuses.

William Wells Brown, who escaped to freedom, reported that on one plantation, enslaved men were obligated to pick eighty pounds of cotton daily, while enslaved women were required to pick seventy pounds per day. Failure to meet the quota resulted in one lash of the whip for each pound short. The whipping post was situated adjacent to the cotton scales. [195] A New York man who attended a slave auction in the mid-19th century observed that at least three-quarters of the male slaves he saw for sale bore scars on their backs from whippings. [196] In contrast, smaller slave-owning families often exhibited closer relationships between owners and slaves; this sometimes fostered a more humane environment, though it was not a guaranteed outcome. [197]

Historian Lawrence M. Friedman noted: “Ten Southern codes made it a crime to mistreat a slave… Under the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825 (art. 192), if a master was ‘convicted of cruel treatment’, the judge could order the sale of the mistreated slave, presumably to a better master.” [198] However, masters and overseers were seldom prosecuted under these laws, as enslaved individuals were legally barred from providing testimony in court.

Wilson Chinn , a branded slave from Louisiana, also displays instruments of torture used to punish slaves (carte de visite by Charles Paxson, Metropolitan Museum of Art 2019.521).

According to Adalberto Aguirre’s research, 1,161 slaves were executed in the United States between the 1790s and 1850s. [199] Swift executions of both innocent slaves and suspects typically followed any attempted slave rebellions, as white militias frequently reacted with widespread killings, reflecting their deep-seated fears of rebellion or suspected uprisings.

While the lives of most slaves were severely restricted in terms of movement and autonomy, exceptions existed to virtually every generalization. For instance, some slaves enjoyed considerable freedom in their daily lives: slaves permitted to rent out their labor and who might live independently of their masters in cities; slaves who employed white workers; and slave doctors who provided medical care to affluent white patients. [200] Following 1820, in response to the inability to import new slaves from Africa and partly due to abolitionist criticism, some slaveholders improved the living conditions of their enslaved individuals to enhance productivity and deter escapes. [201] This was part of a paternalistic approach adopted during the antebellum era , encouraged by ministers seeking to utilize Christianity to improve the treatment of slaves. Slaveholders published articles in Southern agricultural journals to share best practices in slave treatment and management, aiming to demonstrate the superiority of their system over the living conditions of Northern industrial workers.

Medical care for slaves was limited by the available medical knowledge of the time. It was generally provided by other enslaved individuals or by members of the slaveholders’ families, although sometimes “plantation physicians,” such as J. Marion Sims , were summoned by owners to protect their investment by treating sick slaves. Many slaves possessed medical skills utilized to care for one another and employed folk remedies brought from Africa. They also developed new remedies using American plants and herbs. [202]

An estimated nine percent of slaves experienced disability due to physical, sensory, psychological, neurological, or developmental conditions. However, slaves were frequently categorized as disabled if they were unable to work or bear children, and consequently faced harsh treatment. [203]

According to Andrew Fede, an owner could only be held criminally liable for the killing of a slave if the slave was “completely submissive and under the master’s absolute control.” [204] For example, in 1791, the North Carolina General Assembly classified the willful killing of a slave as criminal murder , unless committed during resistance or under moderate correction (i.e., corporal punishment). [205]

A sale at auction, depicted by Alonzo J. White , on the plaza north of the Exchange Building in Charleston, South Carolina , on March 10, 1853, of 96 individuals previously enslaved near the Combahee River (Eyre Crowe, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes , Havana, Cuba).

While the living conditions of slaves were poor by contemporary standards, Robert Fogel argued that all workers, whether free or enslaved, faced hardships during the first half of the 19th century. [206] However, unlike free individuals, enslaved people were significantly more susceptible to malnutrition, physical abuse, sexual exploitation, or death, with no legal or other recourse against their perpetrators.

Commodification of human tissue

In a grim manifestation of commodification, the human body was legally treated as property in the case of African slaves, who were not legally recognized as fully human. The most prevalent method of commodifying slave tissues was through medical experimentation. Slaves were routinely subjected to experimental surgeries, amputations, disease research, and the development of medical techniques, often without pain relief or analgesics, leading to deaths from shock on the operating table. The bodies of such slaves were either grouped with other medical cadavers or sold, stolen, or grave-robbed for medical experimentation. [208] In numerous instances, slave cadavers were utilized in demonstrations and on dissection tables, [209] frequently resulting in the sale of their tissues for profit.

For purposes of punishment, decoration, or self-expression, the skin of slaves was often processed into leather for furniture, accessories, and clothing, [210] with a notable practice involving wealthy clients sending cadaver skin to tanners and shoemakers under the guise of animal leather. [211] Slave hair could be shaved and used as stuffing for pillows and furniture. In some cases, the internal tissues of slaves (such as fat and bones) were rendered into soap, medicinal grease, trophies, and other commodities. [212]

Some enslaved individuals recounted instances of cannibalism perpetrated by white enslavers, who reportedly butchered and consumed some enslaved Black individuals. [213] : 33–34 

Sexual abuse, reproductive exploitation, and breeding farms

“The negroes to be sold” advertisement, including “America” and “Obedience,” from The Port Gibson Herald, March 1, 1850.

As is characteristic of any slave society, [214] slave women in the United States faced a high risk of rape and sexual exploitation due to their owners’ absolute rights over their bodies. [215] [216] Their children were repeatedly taken from them and sold as chattel; typically, they never saw each other again. Many enslaved individuals resisted sexual attacks, and some died in the process. Others bore lasting psychological and physical scars from these assaults. [217] The sexual abuse of slaves was partly rooted in a patriarchal Southern culture that viewed Black women as property or chattel. [216] While Southern culture strictly policed against sexual relations between white women and Black men, citing concerns for racial purity, the numerous mixed-race slaves and slave children evident by the late 18th century demonstrated that white men frequently exploited enslaved women. [216] Prominent planter widowers, notably figures like John Wayles and his son-in-law Thomas Jefferson , took enslaved women as concubines ; each had six children with their respective partners: Elizabeth Hemings and her daughter Sally Hemings (who was Thomas Jefferson’s half-sister-in-law), respectively. Both Mary Chesnut and [Fanny Kemble], wives of planters, documented this issue in the antebellum South during the decades preceding the Civil War. Planters sometimes utilized mixed-race slaves as house servants or favored artisans, recognizing them as their own children or relatives. [218]

Despite public opposition to race mixing, Jefferson, in his 1785 publication Notes on the State of Virginia , wrote: “The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life”. [219] Historians estimate that 58% of enslaved women in the U.S. aged 15–30 years were subjected to sexual assault by their slave owners and other white men. [220] As a consequence of centuries of slavery and such relationships, DNA studies have revealed that the vast majority of African Americans possess historical European ancestry, predominantly through paternal lines. [221] [222] The average Black American genome contains approximately 20–25% European ancestry, [223] and it is estimated that as much as one-third of their Y chromosomes originate from European ancestry. [224]

Portrayals of Black men as hypersexual and savage, alongside the ideal of protecting white women, were prevalent during this era [225] and served to obscure the experiences of sexual violence endured by Black male slaves, particularly at the hands of white women. Subject not only to rape and sexual exploitation, slaves faced sexual violence in various forms. A Black man could be coerced by his slave owner to rape another slave or even a free Black woman. [226] Forced pairings with other slaves, including forced breeding, which neither individual might desire, were common. [226] Despite explicit prohibitions against homosexuality and sodomy, it was not uncommon for male slaves and children to experience sexual harassment and assault by their masters in private. [227] Through sexual and reproductive abuse, slaveowners sought to further solidify their control over their enslaved populations.

The prohibition on the importation of slaves into the United States after 1808 limited the supply of slaves within the nation. This occurred concurrently with the invention of the cotton gin, which facilitated the expansion of cultivation in the uplands of short-staple cotton, leading to the clearing of lands for cotton farming across vast areas of the Deep South, particularly the Black Belt . The demand for labor in this region escalated sharply, prompting an expansion of the internal slave market. Simultaneously, the Upper South experienced a surplus of slaves due to a shift towards mixed-crop agriculture, which was less labor-intensive than tobacco cultivation. To augment the slave supply, slaveholders focused on the fertility of enslaved women, viewing it as a component of their productivity, and intermittently compelled these women to bear a large number of children. During this period, terms such as “breeders,” “breeding slaves,” “child-bearing women,” “breeding period,” and “too old to breed” became commonplace. [228]

The Quadroon Girl (1878), an oil painting by Henry Mosler ; scholars of slavery have described the imagery of the “quadroon bride” and the Southern “fixation on interracial sex and violence” as a form of folk pornography. [229] (Cincinnati Art Museum 1976.25).

In the United States during the early 19th century, owners of female slaves possessed the unfettered legal right to exploit them as sexual objects. [214] : 83  This practice extended to the free use of female slaves on slave ships by their crews.

The slaveholder has it in his power, to violate the chastity of his slaves. And not a few are beastly enough to exercise such power. Hence it happens that, in some families, it is difficult to distinguish the free children from the slaves. It is sometimes the case, that the largest part of the master’s own children are born, not of his wife, but of the wives and daughters of his slaves, whom he has basely prostituted as well as enslaved. [231] : 38 

One observer lamented: “This vice, this bane of society, has already become so common, that it is scarcely esteemed a disgrace.” [232]

Andreas Byrenheidt, a 70-year-old physician, [233] placed an unusually lengthy and detailed runaway slave ad in two Alabama newspapers in an attempt to recover a 20-year-old enslaved woman, whom he had purchased four years prior, and her four-year-old daughter, who sometimes identified herself as Lolo ("$100 Reward,” Cahaba Democrat, Cahaba, Alabama , June 16, 1838).

The term “fancy” was code for a girl or young woman deemed suitable or trained for sexual exploitation. [234] : 56  Particularly light-skinned young girls were openly sold for this purpose, commanding significantly higher prices than field hands. [234] : 38, 55  [235] Specialized markets catering to the “fancy girl ” trade existed in New Orleans [214] [234] : 55  and Lexington, Kentucky . [236] [237] Historian Philip Shaw recounts an instance where Abraham Lincoln and Allen Gentry witnessed such sales in New Orleans in 1828:

Gentry vividly remembered a day in New Orleans when he and the nineteen-year-old Lincoln came upon a slave market. Pausing to watch, Gentry recalled looking down at Lincoln’s hands and seeing that he “doubled his fists tightly; his knuckles went white”. Men wearing black coats and white hats buy field hands, “black and ugly”, for $500 to 800. And then the real horror begins: “When the sale of “fancy girls” began, Lincoln, “unable to stand it any longer”, muttered to Gentry “Allen that’s a disgrace. If I ever get a lick at that thing I’ll hit it hard.” [238]

In some instances, children were subjected to such abuse. Adolescent “fancy girls” were occasionally marketed as “virgins” [234] : 55 , and the sale of a 13-year-old described as “nearly a fancy” has been documented. [239] Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. purchased his wife when she was 13 years old. [240] : 191  Young boys, sometimes as young as 10 or 12, were similarly sold as “fancy boys” by at least one American slave trader. [241]

Enslaved women who had reached childbearing age were encouraged to reproduce, which increased their value as slaves, as their offspring would eventually provide labor or be sold, enriching their owners. Enslaved women were sometimes subjected to medical treatments to enhance or encourage their fertility. [242] The variations in skin color observed in the United States clearly indicate the frequency of impregnation of Black women by white men. [243] For example, in the 1850 Census, 75.4% of “free negros” in Florida were described as mulattos , indicating mixed racial heritage. [244] Nevertheless, it is only in very recent times, through DNA studies, that any reliable statistics have become available, and this research is still in its early stages. Girls with lighter skin, who contrasted with the darker field workers, were particularly sought after. [239] [245]

As the practice of breeding slaves for strength, fertility, or increased labor became prevalent on many plantations, numerous documented instances of “breeding farms ” emerged across the United States. Enslaved individuals were forcibly compelled to conceive and birth as many new slaves as possible. The largest such operations were located in Virginia and Maryland. [246] Because the slave breeding industry stemmed from a desire for accelerated population growth among slaves, slave owners often implemented systematic practices to increase their slave holdings. Female slaves “were subjected to repeated rape or forced sex and became pregnant again and again,” [247] sometimes involving incest . In harrowing accounts from former slaves, some reported that hoods or bags were placed over their heads to prevent them from identifying their assaulters. Journalist William Spivey wrote, “It could be someone they know, perhaps a niece, aunt, sister, or their own mother. The breeders only wanted a child that could be sold.” [248]

As Caroline Randall Williams was quoted in The New York Times stating: “You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument.” She added, “I have rape-colored skin.” [249]

The sexual exploitation of Black slaves by slave owners or by individuals who could purchase a slave’s temporary services took various forms. A slave owner, or his adolescent son, could access the slave quarters area of the plantation and engage in sexual acts with minimal or no privacy. It was common for female domestic workers (housekeepers, maids, cooks, laundresses, or nannies ) to be raped by one or more members of the household. Brothels throughout the slave states largely employed female slaves who provided sexual services for the profit of their owners. A small number of free Black females engaged in prostitution or concubinage, particularly in New Orleans. [234] : 41  [214]

Slave owners who engaged in sexual activity with enslaved women “were often the elite of the community. They had little need to worry about public scorn.” These relationships “appear to have been tolerated and in some cases even quietly accepted.” “Southern women… do not trouble themselves about it.” [250] Franklin and Armfield, who were undeniably members of the elite, frequently joked in their correspondence about the Black women and girls they sexually assaulted. The concept of wrongdoing in their actions never occurred to them. [251]

Another significant concern revolved around the perceived threat of sexual intercourse between Black males and white females. Just as Black women were seen as possessing “a trace of Africa, that supposedly incited passion and sexual wantonness,” [234] : 39  Black men were viewed as savages, incapable of controlling their lust when given the opportunity. [252]

A different perspective was offered by Quaker planter Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. from Florida. He advocated for, and personally practiced, deliberate racial mixing through marriage as part of his proposed solution to the slavery issue: racial integration , termed “amalgamation ” at the time. In his 1829 Treatise, he contended that mixed-race individuals exhibited superior health and often greater beauty, that interracial sex was hygienic, and that slavery made it convenient. [240] : 190  Due to these views, which were tolerated in Spanish Florida , he found it untenable to reside long in Territorial Florida and relocated with his slaves and multiple wives to a plantation, [Mayorasgo de Koka], in Haiti (now part of the Dominican Republic ). Numerous other individuals engaged in less conspicuous practices of interracial, common-law marriages with enslaved people (see Partus sequitur ventrem ).

Slave markets and slave jails

In New Orleans, the majority of slave sales occurred between September and May. Buyers would visit slave pens to inspect enslaved individuals before the sale. [253] Enslaved people were held until arrangements for their transportation were finalized. They were transported in groups by boat, walked to their new owners, or a combination of both methods. They were moved in groups in a coffle, meaning individuals were chained together with iron rings around their necks, secured by wooden or iron bars. Men on horseback herded these groups, or coffles, to their destinations, employing dogs and whips. The advent of railroads offered a more efficient means of travel that did not rely on coffles. In certain instances, slave traders, such as Franklin & Armfield, maintained a network of slave depots situated along their routes. [254] Around 1833, a newspaper in Appalachia expressed concern about slave traders traveling through the region with coffles and reported the existence of private jails constructed by slave traders in Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, and near Fredericksburg. [255] Abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld wrote around 1840:

The procurement of from fifty to three hundred slaves is a work of days, sometimes of weeks or months. Many plantations must be visited by the trader and his agents. Then a variety of circumstances occasions necessary delays, before the gang can be put in motion for the south. During this period the slaves are secured by handcuffs, fetters, and chains, and put into some place of confinement. The national prison at Washington city, and the state prisons, are prostituted to this use when occasion requires. The more extensive slave-dealers have private prisons constructed expressly for this purpose. [256]

Lumpkin’s Jail, the largest in Virginia, was notoriously inhumane, leading to deaths from starvation, illness, or beatings. The cells were so cramped that individuals were sometimes stacked upon one another, and there were no sanitary facilities. [254] A historical account from 1928 described jail cells constructed on the Maryland farm of trader George Kephart: “Mr. Kephart was probably the largest slave dealer in the county. He had two underground jails built where he kept the unruly, as well as a brick jail above ground.” [257]

While some jails may have operated as orderly and efficient establishments, many, if not most, were not. Henry Bibb described a jail where he was held as repugnant “on account of the filth and dirt of the most disagreeable kind…there were bedbugs, fleas, lice and mosquitoes in abundance to contend with. At night we had to lie down on the floor in this filth. Our food was very scanty, and of the most inferior quality. No gentleman’s dog would eat what we were compelled to eat or starve.” [258] Bernard M. Lynch, a slave trader in St. Louis, offered jail services to owners at a rate of 37½ cents per slave per day. [259]

A “negro mart” typically functioned as an urban retail market, often comprising a dedicated showroom and/or workyard, a jail, and storerooms or kitchens for food. These “negro marts” served as urban “clearinghouses” for both acquiring enslaved individuals from more rural districts and selling them for various forms of labor—agricultural, skilled, or domestic. The term “negro mart” was most commonly used in Charleston, South Carolina, but also appeared in Memphis, Tennessee, and several locations in Georgia. In the 1850s, future Confederate military leader Nathan Bedford Forrest operated a heavily advertised negro mart on Adams Street in Memphis. In January 1860, The New York Times reported that the Forrest & Jones negro mart in Memphis had collapsed and caught fire; although two individuals died, the bills of sale for enslaved people, “amounting in the aggregate to US$400,000,” were salvaged. [260]

Slave codes

The inscription on the reverse of this daguerreotype case reads: “This Daguerreotype was taken by Southworth Aug. 1845 it is a copy of Captain Jonathan Walker ’s hand as branded by the U.S. Marshall of the Dist. of Florida for having helped 7 men to obtain ‘Life Liberty, and Happiness.’ SS Slave Saviour Northern Dist. SS Slave Stealer Southern Dist. SS.” Tags used for identifying and tracking enslaved individuals in Charleston, South Carolina (National Museum of American History 1993.0503).

To regulate the relationship between slaves and owners, including legal support for maintaining slaves as property, states established slave codes , many of which were based on laws dating back to the colonial era. The code for the District of Columbia defined a slave as “a human being, who is by law deprived of his or her liberty for life, and is the property of another.” [261]

While each state possessed its own slave code, many concepts were shared across the slave states. [262] Some of these codes, enacted in response to slave rebellions, prohibited the teaching of slaves to read or write. This prohibition was distinctive to American slavery and was believed to curb aspirations that might lead to escape or rebellion. [263] Informal education occurred when white children taught their enslaved companions what they were learning; in other instances, adult slaves acquired knowledge from free artisan workers, particularly in urban settings where movement was less restricted.

In Alabama, slaves were forbidden from trading goods among themselves and were not permitted to leave their master’s premises without a written consent or pass. This requirement was common in other states as well, and local patrols, known to slaves as “pater rollers,” frequently inspected the passes of slaves found away from their plantations. In Virginia, a slave was prohibited from drinking in public within a mile of their master or during public gatherings. Across all slave states, slaves were forbidden from carrying firearms.

Slaves were generally prohibited by law from congregating in groups, with the exception of worship services (a factor contributing to the prominence of the Black Church as a significant institution in Black communities today). Following Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831, which heightened white anxieties throughout the South, some states also enacted prohibitions or restrictions on religious gatherings of slaves, or mandated that such gatherings be supervised by white individuals. Slaveholders feared that group meetings would facilitate communication among slaves, potentially leading to rebellion. [264] Slaves engaged in private, clandestine “brush meetings” held in secluded wooded areas.

In Ohio, emancipated slaves were prohibited from returning to the state in which they had been enslaved. Other Northern states discouraged the settlement of free Black individuals within their borders. Fearing the influence of free Black populations, Virginia and other Southern states passed laws requiring emancipated Black individuals to leave the state within a year (or sometimes less), unless granted a reprieve by legislative act.

Religion

Eastman Johnson’s 1863 oil painting The Lord is My Shepherd (Smithsonian American Art Museum 1979.5.13).

Africans brought their religious traditions with them from Africa, including Islam, [265] Catholicism, [266] and traditional indigenous religions.

Prior to the American Revolution, masters and revivalist preachers facilitated the spread of Christianity within slave communities. This included Catholicism in Spanish Florida and [California], and in French and Spanish Louisiana , as well as Protestantism in English colonies, supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel . During the First Great Awakening in the mid-18th century, Baptists and Methodists from New England preached messages opposing slavery, encouraged masters to emancipate their slaves, and actively converted both enslaved and free Black individuals, granting them significant roles within newly formed congregations. [267] The first independent Black congregations were established in the South before the Revolution, in South Carolina and Georgia. Believing that “slavery was contrary to the ethics of Jesus,” Christian congregations and clergy, particularly in the North, played a role in the Underground Railroad , with Wesleyan Methodists and Quakers being notably active. [268] [269]

Over the subsequent decades, with the expansion of slavery throughout the South, some Baptist and Methodist ministers gradually altered their theological messaging to accommodate the institution. After 1830, white Southerners argued for the compatibility of Christianity and slavery, citing numerous passages from both the Old and New Testament . [270] They promoted Christianity as a means to encourage improved treatment of slaves and advocated for a paternalistic approach. In the 1840s and 1850s, the issue of slavery led to the division of the nation’s largest religious denominations—the Methodist , Baptist , and Presbyterian churches—into separate Northern and Southern organizations (see Methodist Episcopal Church, South , Southern Baptist Convention , and Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America ). [271] Schisms also occurred between denominations, such as the separation between the Wesleyan Methodist Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church . [272]

Southern slaves generally attended services at their masters’ churches, where they often outnumbered the white congregants. They were typically relegated to sitting in the back or in the balcony. They listened to white preachers who emphasized the slaves’ obligation to remain in their designated place and acknowledged the slave’s dual identity as both a person and property. [270] Preachers instructed masters on their responsibilities and the concept of appropriate paternalistic treatment, utilizing Christianity to advocate for improved conditions for slaves and to treat them “justly and fairly” (Colossians 4:1). This included urging masters to exercise self-control, refrain from disciplining in anger, avoid threats, and ultimately foster Christianity among their slaves through example. [270]

Slaves also established their own religious observances , meeting in secret without the supervision of their white masters or ministers. Larger plantations with slave populations numbering 20 or more often became centers for these nighttime meetings , bringing together enslaved individuals from one or several plantations. [270] These congregations were typically led by a singular preacher, often illiterate and with limited theological knowledge, who was recognized for his personal piety and ability to cultivate a spiritual environment. African Americans developed a theology drawing heavily from Biblical narratives that resonated most profoundly with their experiences, including the hope for deliverance from slavery akin to their own Exodus . One enduring legacy of these clandestine congregations is the development of the African American spiritual . [273]

Mandatory illiteracy

A formerly enslaved individual reading in 1870. Following the abolition of slavery, illiteracy rates among Black people decreased from 80% in 1870 to 30% by 1910. [274]

In a practice unique to American slavery, legislatures across the South enacted new laws to curtail the already limited rights afforded to Black individuals. For instance, Virginia prohibited Black individuals, both enslaved and free, from practicing preaching, forbade them from owning firearms, and outlawed the teaching of slaves or free Black individuals to read. [130] The laws specified severe penalties for both students and teachers involved in educating slaves, including whipping or imprisonment. [275]

[…] every assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly. Any justice may issue his warrant to any office or other person, requiring him to enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro therein; and he, or any other justice, may order such negro to be punished with stripes. [276]

Slave owners perceived literacy as a threat to the institution of slavery and their financial investments within it. A North Carolina statute enacted in 1830–1831 explicitly stated: “Teaching slaves to read and write, tends to excite dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion.” [277] [278] Literacy enabled enslaved individuals to access the writings of abolitionists , which discussed the abolition of slavery and detailed the slave revolution in Haiti (1791–1804) and the end of slavery in the British Empire (1833). It also allowed slaves to learn about the thousands of enslaved individuals who had successfully escaped, often with assistance from the Underground Railroad . Literacy was also believed to contribute to enslaved people’s unhappiness at best, and insolence and sullenness at worst. As articulated by prominent Washington lawyer Elias B. Caldwell in 1822:

The more you improve the condition of these people, the more you cultivate their minds, the more miserable you make them, in their present state. You give them a higher relish for those privilegies which they can never attain, and turn what we intend for a blessing [slavery] into a curse. No, if they must remain in their present situation, keep them in the lowest state of degradation and ignorance. The nearer you bring them to the condition of brutes, the better chance do you give them of possessing their apathy. [279]

In contrast to the South, slave owners in Utah were legally obligated to provide education for their slaves. [280] Black slaves were not required to attend school for as long as Indian slaves. [281]

Freedom suits and Dred Scott

An allegorical depiction of a slave gaining liberation by entering a free state, rendered as a wood-engraving from Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave (1849). [282]

With the development of distinct slave and free states following the American Revolution, coupled with extensive commercial and military activities, new circumstances arose wherein slaves might be transported by their masters into free states. Most free states not only prohibited slavery but also ruled that slaves brought and held within their borders unlawfully could be granted freedom. Such cases were sometimes referred to as transit cases. [283] Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet Scott, each initiated freedom suits in St. Louis, Missouri after the death of their master, asserting their right to freedom based on having been held in a free territory (the northern portion of the Louisiana Purchase , from which slavery was excluded under the terms of the Missouri Compromise ). (These two cases were later consolidated under Dred Scott’s name.) Scott filed his suit for freedom in 1846, navigating through two state trials; the first denied freedom to the couple, while the second granted it (and by extension, to their two daughters, who had also been held unlawfully in free territories). For 28 years, Missouri state precedents had generally upheld the laws of neighboring free states and territories, ruling in favor of freedom in such transit cases where slaves had been illegally held in free territory. However, in the Dred Scott case, the [Missouri