Slavery In The 18th Century

The first African were brought in 1619 to aid in the production of crops like tobacco in the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. “Slavery” spread throughout the American settlements when the Africans were unloaded off a Dutch ship (“History: Slavery”). The American settlements practiced “slavery” during the 17th and 18th centuries, and “slaves” helped form the economic fundamentals of the new nation (“History: Slavery”). During the middle of the 19th century, America’s westward development, along with a growing abolition movement in the North, would spur an excessive talk over “slavery” that would rip the country apart in the bloody American Civil War (“History: Slavery”). Although the Union victory freed the country’s 4 million “slaves”, …show more content…
In the 17th century, European colonists in North America rotated to African “slaves” as inexpensive, more abundant efforts than indentured servants (“History: Slavery”). Though it is impossible to give correct numbers, some have said that 6 to 7 million “slaves” were imported to the New World during the 18th century alone, divesting the African continent of the toughest and artistic men and women (“History: Slavery”). In the 17th and 18th centuries, black “slaves” worked largely on the tobacco, rice and indigo homesteads of the southern seaside (“History: Slavery”). After the American Revolution, many colonists started to link the cruelty of black “slaves” to their own persecution by the British, and to call for “slavery’s” elimination (“History: Slavery”). After the war’s end, the new U.S. Constitution quietly recognized the body, counting each “slave as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of taxation and representation in Congress” and promising the right to reclaim any “person held to service or labor” (“History: Slavery”). “Slavery” itself was never well-known in the North, though many of the area’s businesspersons grew rich on the trading of “slaves” and nest egg in southern farmsteads (“History: …show more content…
“The Underground Railroad” reached its height in the 1850’s and ended in 1863 (“The Underground Railroad”). Abraham Lincoln, who was president, developed the “Emancipation Proclamation” and finally eliminated “slavery” (“The Underground Railroad”). The accomplishment of the “Underground Railroad” helped spread abolitionist feelings in the North (“History: Slavery”). It also undoubtedly increased sectional tensions, convincing “pro-slavery” southerners of their northern fellow citizens’ determination to defeat the organization that sustained them (“History: