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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These everlasting words were written in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and are just as true today as they were then. What wasn’t written was that the white men thought themselves above those with dark black skin and thought it okay to enslave those that are different. African Americans have a sad history in the United States. This paper will discuss the events that occurred between 1800 and 1880 involving African Americans and slavery. The life and politics of those white Americans changed drastically in those 80 years. But to get a clear picture of how slavery started a brief history of slavery will begin the discussion.

Slavery has been around since the beginning of man. Classical slavery was not based on race but on those that were captured during war. In ancient Greece and Rome they depended heavily on their slaves to be the workforce. As Rome expanded, so did the number of slaves. As harsh as the Romans were on their slaves, it is not surprising there were many slave revolts. Slavery in America is believed to have started in 1619 when a Dutch slave ship brought twenty African Americans to Virginia. The records are a bit unclear on the first African American in America but all records point to those 20 as being the first. In the 1620’s some of these Africans were either still slaves, were free, or were treated as indentured servants, becoming free after a couple years. There was one African in the 1640’s named Anthony Johnson who was free, had been given two names, owned land and even other Africans. But around the 1650’s slaves began to all be sold for life, not as indentured servants. A purchase could even include the slave’s potential offspring. One purchase incorporated the future children of a ten year old girl. This began the change of the definition of slavery; slavery was now lifelong and inheritable, if your parents were slaves you would also be a slave. In the 1660’s slavery was protected by law in Virginia and Maryland and in 1705 Virginia had its first slave code. With the growing industry of cotton in the south, more and more slaves were brought in from Africa. By the year 1800 there was an estimated number of 1,002,037 African Americans in the United States making up about 18.9% of the total U.S. population. Of those an estimated 893,602 were slaves. (U.S. Census 1800)


Slavery is defined as the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune (dictionary.com). African Americans were property and possessions; they were no longer considered to be human beings. A ship would land on Africa’s coast and men would go searching for young healthy boys and girls. Tribes would be attacked; people killed who opposed, and families broken apart to satisfy the labor demands of farmers. Those who were captured were shackled together and forced to march many miles to the coast and different holding areas. There, chained together, they waited for the boat that would carry them to the new world. Many at this point would die due to the ill treatment and psychological trauma but the journey had just begun for those who survived. Once aboard the ship they were packed tighter than sardines into the ships hold for four to six weeks depending on the weather. Unable to move, the sanitation was horrific, disease spread from one to the next, and seasickness was common. Due to the condition of the travel to America only one-half of all those that left Africa became fully productive laborers. Once on land again they were quarantined to ensure no diseases were imported with them and then they were taken to auction like cattle and sold to the highest bidder. Just like at a cattle auction the bidders had the right to examine the merchandise before purchasing. These African’s weren’t humans anymore; they were property, to be sold, traded, worked, and killed if necessary. Slaves were more like cattle to the white Americans rather than human beings. Their convicting crime: a dark complexion. Their punishment: lifelong slavery, pains of hunger, infliction of stripes, brutal servitude, loss of family, and the inability to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Female slaves are not often thought of when slavery is mentioned. Typically the image of men working in the field all day with a slave driver whipping those that aren’t working fast enough is thought of first. But many, in my opinion, don’t picture the women slaves and what they had to endure. Sarah M. Grimke, although born into a wealthy slaveholding family, was deeply involved in the anti-slavery movement in the 1830’s. Sarah gives such a vivid description of the life of female slaves, that my summarizing it would not do it justice. Sarah explains; “Our southern cities are whelmed beneath a tide of pollution; the virtue of female slaves is wholly at the mercy of irresponsible tyrants, and women are bought and sold in slave markets, to gratify the brutal lust of those who bear the name of Christians. In our slave States, if amid all her degradation and ignorance, a woman desires to preserve her virtue unsullied, she is either bribed or whipped into compliance, or if she dares resist her seducer, her life by the laws of some slave States may be, and has actually been sacrificed to the fury of disappointed passion. Where such laws do not exist the power…vested in the master over his property, leaves the defenseless slave entirely at his mercy, and the suffering of some females on this account, both physical and mental, are intense…In Christian America, the slave has no refuge from unbridled cruelty and lust.” (On the Condition of Women in the United States) Quality of life for both male and female slaves alike had been reduced to nothing only to be looked at as property, to be handled and charged about.

African Americans/slaves did not have a say in the political world, that was left to the white man, their master, but he wanted more representation for his southern state so after many compromises on the northern states part they finally settled on the three-fifths compromise. This said that each slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation and direct taxation. The slavery issue had proven to be the most contentious issue that molded the party systems in the last half of the 19th century. This issue caused the initial split of the Whig politicians; the northern Whig politicians that supported an abolition of slavery and the southern Whig politicians who wanted to ensure slavery’s survival. Thus we see the start of the republicans and the democrats, respectively. In the end slavery caused the division of the republicans and democrats not only in ideology but geography as well. The Republican Party clustered more in the north and west with strong urban support, while the Democratic Party gathered in the south and other rural enclaves. African American’s didn’t have rights till post civil war and still after then it took years and years for white Americans to see blacks as their equals and not inferiors.

The struggle over slavery had been escalating for decades and the North had gained strength while the self-image of the South was being tainted. Abraham Lincoln was the republican vote for president and in March of 1861 he was sworn into office. In his first inaugural address President Lincoln spoke directly to those worried that slavery would end. He said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so…” Unfortunately by the time President Lincoln was sworn into office and gave this address, seven states had already seceded from the union and in April began this nation’s bloodiest war to date. Northerners and Southerners both thought that the Civil War would be over within in a year, no one could have guessed that it would last a whole four years and claim the lives of so many men. In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves in the Southern territory controlled by the Union. This enraged the Southern supporters (one being John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln) but the South was already in retreat from the North and the war ended in April of 1865.

Reconstruction of the nation was not an easy task for the congressional Republicans. They brought about the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution but the southern states would not ratify the 14th Amendment which granted due process and equal protection of the laws to freedmen. These states were disbanded and would only be re-admitted to the Union if they accepted the 14th and 15th Amendments. The 15th Amendment would grant black men the right to vote. Black enfranchisement was gaining success in the social and economic world but the South was fighting it and came up with the “Redemption.” By the 1870’s, the Democratic Party had finally regained control of most of the southern states which caused them to begin again restricting the political rights of the African Americans. In 1866, under the leadership of former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Ku Klux Klan aka the KKK was organized. The KKK was strongest in rural areas and consisted of members mostly from elite Southern society. Because of the Klan and other voter intimidation, blacks began to lose the political ground they had only just acquired. The spread of freedom was further cut short by economic programs such as the crop-lien/sharecropping system. This system was designed to keep/force the blacks and poor whites in a state of constant, long-term dependency on the rich white man. This “Redemption” proved to be a success at ensuring social control in the post-Reconstruction South and sealed the fate of the African American citizens for almost a century.

African Americans had to endure many hardships while on the road to freedom, all of which were cruel and wicked in the sight of God, but through it, our country has bettered itself and become a nation of freedom. America has been changed forever. Lives changed. Politics changed. The United States is united and will be a place of “forever freedom” for those seeking life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. May the grace of God be upon this nation forever and let us never forget that it is only through Him, the Creator, that we have those certain unalienable rights. Men were created equal, both black and white. Let us learn from the past so as to never repeat in the future and remain “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”(Pledge of Allegiance, 1954)