Professor Wathen
History 1301
21 Nov 2016
How has slavery affected the West and the Westward Expansion of America?
Slavery was present since the American Revolution, and played a huge profitable factor in many lives even before people packed up and moved to the west. Owners, usually whites owned slaves that helped them produce, harvest and work through their systems to earn money. Slavery was especially centralized in the south therefore it was known as a slavery institution. As a result, slavery would take such a turn that it would soon start impacting the recruitment of people towards the trail of the westward expansion of America, and eventually the entire set of western states. Slavery affected the Westward Expansion in the …show more content…
They saw that the more they had authority over what they were growing through the use of their slaves, the more self benefits they would have economically. In my opinion, this makes sense because the south was especially pro-slavery and didn’t like being dominated by richer owners that received many benefits through their lands, and they had to do make a living for themselves with the only crop that was out of the way beneficial to them as owners, cash crops such as cotton. As a result, the thirst to have power of their production which meant over their slaves aswell because the more slaves that would be carrying out tedious work, the better it would do economically for the owners. As a result, people became more obsessed with the idea to gain an economic advancement, continue slavery as an emerging activity, and furthermore reach their own concept of manifest destiny. The threat upon doing well economically and continuing slavery was by the 1787 Northwest Ordinance that abolished slavery in the Northwest territories, and through international trade which ended in 1808. As a result, when