Slavery Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The practice of slavery has occurred in many civilizations throughout human history and was caused by social stratification, economic factors, and high population density. Perhaps most noteworthy of places it occurred were ancient Egypt, China, India, Greece, and the Roman Empire. During the Roman Empire alone, it is estimated that one hundred million people were captured or sold as slaves.

Slavery developed in many ways, including as a means of repaying debts, as punishment for crime, as treatment of prisoners of war, and due to child abandonment. But the trading of slaves for what would be intended as cheap labor is what led to its popularity in North America.

Slavery’s Rise And Decline In America

Slavery began in the American colonies with the first black indentured servants sent to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Transatlantic slave trade began in 1637, and by 1641, colonies under British rule began to sanction slavery by law.

During the 1700s, slavery expanded significantly in the American colonies and states. Major slave revolts occurred in New York in 1712 and in South Carolina in 1739. Though some blacks who fought for the Americans in the revolution against England were freed, the number of those who were enslaved far outnumbered them. Just as Massachusetts became the first state to ban slavery in 1780, the Articles of Confederation, which established the first national government, contained no legal recognition of slavery.

Despite the efforts of abolitionist groups and laws such as the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, which banned slavery in the territories of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, the U.S. Constitution legalized slavery in at least three ways without specifically mentioning the practice. For one, each slave counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of determining a state’s taxation and representation. Second, the importation of slaves was permitted to occur until 1808.Third, slaves were included in criminal extradition provisions so as to protect the property rights of slaveholders.

According to the 1790 census, there were approximately 757,000 blacks in the United States, of whom 92 percent, or 697,000, were still enslaved. The number of those enslaved increased to 1.2 million in 1810, 2.0 million in 1830, 3.2 million in 1850, and just under four million in 1860.

The plantation system and its reliance on manual labor received a boom in 1793 with the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. Previously, tobacco and rice had been the most profitable items to grow among states in the South, but with the cotton gin, cotton production reached forty million pounds (eighteen million kilograms) in 1800, and the output would double in each of the following decades. Cotton became among the chief exports of the United States in first half of the nineteenth century.

In 1793, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which required the federal government to assist in the return of runaway slaves. In 1808, Congress officially banned the importation of slaves from abroad. However, that action resulted in a concomitant increase of domestic slave trade.

Because Congress was balanced between slave and free states, the acquisition of new states precipitated debate over the their status. The War of 1812 verified the viability of the United States and led to expansion of the west and south, and seven states joined the Union between 1812 and 1821. In the Missouri Compromise of 1820, it was agreed that Maine would enter the Union as free state and Missouri as a slave state, with slavery prohibited in the balance of the Louisiana Territory.

After the war between Mexico and the United States, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed in 1848. This treaty recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of the United States; ceded parts of present-day Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and California; and exchanged monetary payments for claims. The takeover of the aforementioned territory, combined with the discovery of gold in California, hastened the need to determine the status of newly admitted states, of which there were five between 1845 and 1850. In the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state and Texas’s status was changed to a slave state. This law also abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia, guaranteed popular sovereignty in New Mexico and Utah, and strengthened fugitive slave law features. Four years later, the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by permitting popular sovereignty on slavery in areas comprising the unorganized Louisiana Territory.

Judicial rulings during the antebellum period supported the continuation of slavery, and an 1842 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. In the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford ruling, the Supreme Court held that Congress did not have the authority to ban slavery in the states and that slaves were property rather than citizens.

Opposition to slavery during the 1800s took many forms. Major slave revolts occurred in 1822, 1831, and 1859. Legislation like the 1846 Wilmot Proviso opposed the expansion of slavery. Antislavery literature such as 1852’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin proved enormously beneficial to the abolitionist cause.

The Civil War And The Global Legacy Of Slavery

After the election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1860, seven southern states seceded from the United States; four others followed shortly thereafter. These states established the Confederate States of America, which supported slavery and which declared war on the United States. After several versions were proposed, the Lincoln administration issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing those enslaved in rebel states. The Union prevailed in a war that killed six hundred thousand Americans in both the North and South. In rapid succession, three constitutional amendments were ratified: the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment, which provided citizenship to those in previous servitude; and the Fifteenth Amendment, which furnished the right to vote to males who were previously enslaved. It would take another century before full citizenship and voting rights were enjoyed by African Americans in the United States.

Just as the eradication of slavery in most of the British Empire pursuant to an 1833 law may have impacted the direction of American slavery, so the result of the Civil War (1861–1865) influenced the practice of slavery for the rest of the nineteenth century. For instance, Portugal stopped slavery in its African colonies in 1869; slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico in 1873 and in Cuba in 1886; and Brazil and Korea ceased slavery in 1888 and 1894, respectively. The last nation to eliminate slavery during the twentieth century was Mauritania in 1981. Though illegal as a practice, slavery continues in many countries.

Bibliography:

Currie, David P. The Constitution in Congress: Descent into the Maelstrom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Escott, Paul D. “Slavery.” In Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, edited by Leonard W. Levy and Louis Fisher. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Franklin, John Hope, and Alfred A. Moss Jr. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.
Holt, Michael F. The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004.
Pohlmann, Marcus D. Black Politics in Conservative America. New York: Longman, 1990.

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