Slavery Africans were first brought to the colonies in 1619, to the colony of Jamestown. Initially, it isn’t certain what they were, they weren’t considered indentured servants, free, or slaves though slaves is eventually what they will become. Slavery was so easily introduced to the colonies because of the previous system of labor, which was indentured servitude. According to the text, this was because indentured servitude was “an exploitative labor system” and it contributed to slavery becoming common in the areas that grew crops that required a lot of labor such as tobacco (34). The reason for bringing slaves over was for labor and economic reasons, and initially only a small portion of slaves that were being brought out of Africa were
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In the north, there wasn’t any justification for slavery, unlike the south where slavery existed primarily for economic reasons. According to the text, several states, when being formed, included laws that either made slavery illegal or aimed to slowly weed out slavery and “by 1800, slavery was on the road to extinction in the northern …show more content…
There was also the American Anti-Slavery Society that was formed in the early 1800’s. There were some attempts to stop slavery or at least prevent it from spreading; two examples of these attempts were the Tallmadge Amendment and the Wilmot Proviso, neither of which were passed. The Free Soil Party also emerges with antislavery being one of their policies, and eventually the Republican Party emerges with the goal of completely getting rid of slavery. In 1852, the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe helped to spur on the abolition movement because it allowed people to read about slavery and gain a better understanding of it (322). Popular sovereignty shows up around 1848, which was that a state should choose for itself whether to allow slavery or not. It’s a more neutral option because slavery could still spread depending on how states respond and it was decided that states from Mexico territory could choose for themselves (320). This leads to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, to which many northern states respond to by ignoring the fugitive slave law and becoming more determined to stop slavery. When Lincoln became president, the southern states began to secede because of the stance he had taken
In the north, there wasn’t any justification for slavery, unlike the south where slavery existed primarily for economic reasons. According to the text, several states, when being formed, included laws that either made slavery illegal or aimed to slowly weed out slavery and “by 1800, slavery was on the road to extinction in the northern …show more content…
There was also the American Anti-Slavery Society that was formed in the early 1800’s. There were some attempts to stop slavery or at least prevent it from spreading; two examples of these attempts were the Tallmadge Amendment and the Wilmot Proviso, neither of which were passed. The Free Soil Party also emerges with antislavery being one of their policies, and eventually the Republican Party emerges with the goal of completely getting rid of slavery. In 1852, the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe helped to spur on the abolition movement because it allowed people to read about slavery and gain a better understanding of it (322). Popular sovereignty shows up around 1848, which was that a state should choose for itself whether to allow slavery or not. It’s a more neutral option because slavery could still spread depending on how states respond and it was decided that states from Mexico territory could choose for themselves (320). This leads to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, to which many northern states respond to by ignoring the fugitive slave law and becoming more determined to stop slavery. When Lincoln became president, the southern states began to secede because of the stance he had taken