Slave Trade
The plantation system developed in south American when the British colonist arrived in Virginia. The British dividend the land into units suitable for farming. The economy of the south depended on crop cultivation; there was a massive need for agriculture labour. As a result, it led to the establishment of slavery and made the society divide sharply along status lines. There was a big contrast between the poor and the rich in south than it was in the north. The rich families owned vast acres of land while the majority of the population was made up of the poor farmers and slaves. As a result, there were a lot of conflicts due to the slavery act among.
As time moved, the plantation system dominated the southern culture, and it was dominated with a lot of inequality from its time of establishment. The British introduced a harsh living condition and made the indigenous human face a harder life with a lot of struggling for survival. The Virginia company offered 50 acres for any adult man who will find their way to America. This was made to attract more settling in the land. As a result, many individuals travelled and created a large settlement in the area. The settlements increase, and after a while, they were as much as the colonies themselves. The wealthy farm owners established their own rules and practices. The increased settlement called for a high demand for labourers to sustain them. Due to this, they started importing labourers from Africa, and this kicked off the slave trade in the country.
The plantation produced cotton, which was a high demand raw material to the European textile industry. The slaves worked in these lands to grow tobacco and indigo. The colonies and the wealthy class left behind small pieces of land or them to plant the locally needed crops. In the early 1790s, there was a movement toward state banning or minimizing the slaves’ trade. However, demand of labors increased due to plating intensity and long process of separating seeds from the cotton. There was an increase in the need for cotton in Europe. As a result, the plantations expanded and grew towards the western. The value of cotton increased, and the innovation of the cotton gin increased the speed of separating the seeds from the cotton. Due to this, cotton planting became a valuable crop in South America. This increased the slave trade in the area. Many slaves were sold in Maryland, Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia, Alabama and Tennessee. The high demand for cotton increases the need for more human labour, and the landowners turned to the readily labour-slaves.
The slaves traded in the south came from their families and the surrounding that they were familiar and comfortable with. These slaves were introduced to new life and surrounding in the south, which was different from the life of their own home of birth. These slaves faced hard work which included land preparation, planting crops, weeding and harvesting the cotton. The increased demand for slaves, lead to the origination of two very different types of slaves, which included rural and urban slaves. The rural slaves worked in the plantation from morning to evening, and their overseers drove them. The urban slaves worked in the mining and lumber industries since there were no sufficient white labours since a large number of the white had turned into the profit-making cotton faring. They aimed at generating a considerable profit from farming since the crop was booming. This increased the demand for slaves in the south. The millers, ships demanded more slaves. As a result, the slaves who were lucky enough to learn specialized skills in the plantation were much requested in the millers and vessels. These slaves were required much in the southern cities.
Therefore, there was a different category of slaves as time moved on. The slave owners purchased their slaves to work where their skills were needed. The owners had to leave their slaves to work under no supervision throughout the day. It differs from those who worked in the plantations which were under strict control. There was a big difference in operating conditions for slaves who worked in cities and those who worked in farms. Those who worked in the towns enjoyed a lot of freedom since they worked under their supervision. Therefore, they were less mistreated. They were also not subjected to a lot of manual works compared to rural slaves. Urban slaves received better food, clothes and other privileges as mentioned earlier. There was no cruelty habitually like those performed in the plantation.
The other significant point is the social systems of the white south. The wealthy farmers who had accumulated wealth ended up forming an aristocratic. This was different from the minor farmers who valued togetherness among themselves, lived a simple life, worked on their gardens, and they mainly depended on their neighbours in case of anything. The wealthy farm owners were of high class, and the free southerners who had no lands were employed by them for various jibs, mainly as plantation overseers. The increased demand for slaves and the widespread of slavery trade there come to a hot debate on whether or not it was right to own slaves. There was a more significant debate opposing and supporting the motion.
Those who supported the motion of ending slavery based their arguments on the Bible and religion. Many of these people could cite the passages where the good servant obeyed his master. The Catholics dominated the country, and many of the priests were part of the people who were against slavery. However, many of them changed after they realized that people could make a lot of wealth through the cotton plantation. They argued that the slave trade benefited the slaves since it made them part of a prosperous Christian empire. Other individuals claimed that the blacks were a lesser being, and they needed to be supervised since they had no capabilities of ruling themselves. They viewed black people as healthy people who could work for long hours. Also, they believed that the slaves were ore immune against many diseases and could work under any weather and condition. Many of the slaveowners could employ them to work in their plantation and their millers, and they paid them very little, and they could end their contract once they get sick or even when they grow old. This shows that the plantation owners did not care about what will happen to the slaves. However, the slaves in the rural areas had a more significant benefit since they had people who could take care of them once they are sick or when they grow old. They could get food and homes to sleep throughout.
The southern states started the ‘Gag Rule’ in 1836. The law prevented any debate on a given topic. Therefore, this prevented those who had filed a case against the slave trade to be hard. This was one of the most significant blows towards the process of ending the slave trade legally. Due to the flagrant violation of the Gag Rule, the act was replaced in 1844. The Abolitionist was the opposition to the pro-slaves. These people believed that owning slaves was immoral, and they were determined towards ending this activity. They ranged from the slaves to black who were not necessarily free. One of these individuals was Nat Turner. He was also a black slave but a gifted preacher. He had around 100 followers, and he believed that he could lead his people out of the bondage. He once attacked a white plantation with his followers, and they killed almost sixty whites. However, they were captured and killed. Despite these, those who viewed slavery as a bad practice continued to fight for its end.
As per the Christianity, the punishment model practised by the slave owner was inhuman. The slaves could be chopped off their a half foot after they were whipped. They were beaten until they were raw all over their bodies, and some could even put pepper and salt on them. All this was seen as inhuman activities, and it was against Christianity. As per the Christianity tradition, the Bible obligated to be a brother-sister keeper. Some of the priests such as John Wesley called for a fight against the slave trade. Their theological convictions highly promoted this. Their counterpart from the Methodist missiology argued that struggle against some immoral acts in the society is a motivation of mission work. They all believed that fighting for human justice is one of the ways of spreading the word of God in a sinful nation. Wesleyans once argued that the Africans need to be set free since they are well organized, and they lived well and with a lot of peace and unity until the time slave masters disrupted their culture, linguist, and political patterns. This was against arguments of some slave owners who believed that Africans needed to be ruled and supervised to carry out their activities. Despite Christianity stand, some of the defenders of slavery argued that slavery had been there from the start. These people quoted that Abraham had slaves. They further argued that slavery was a natural state of humankind. From the Bible, the Greeks and roman had slaves, but Jesus did not speak against it. Therefore, there was a contradiction on which way to follow as per their religious beliefs.
The opposition of the motion ended to the court to defend themselves. The courts had ruled out earlier that the slaves did not have right and they were properties of the owners who were constitutionally protected to own them as their property. The defenders in religious argued that the institution was divine. They argued that in history the black people have never attained a condition so improved and civilized like the one they were receiving in the states. They further insisted that by comparison with weak Europe and the workers in the northern states, the slaves were far better than them. Also, they stated that the slaves had people to give them food, security and clothing when sick or after growing old.
The political leaders believed that ending the slave trade would have a profound and killing economy in the south. These people depended on slave labour, and it was the foundation of their economy. Therefore, they argued that bringing the slave trade to an end immediately would collapse the cotton economy. They also stated that the tobacco crop would end up drying in the farms, and rice would be no longer profitable. Also, there was fear that an end to the slave trade could bring widespread unemployment in the country. The reason behind this is that the government could not offer jobs to all slaves, and they had no way of deporting them. As a result of this, there could be a lot of uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. The emergence of civil war made the government valued slavery as their main value. They further argued that it is common to formulate an argument when a society forms around any institution.
Some people believed that privilege and education inspire revolt. The slave owners pressure the government to tighten restriction on African American. Due to this, there was an introduction to the slave code. These codes differed from one nation to another. In some countries, the black people were not allowed to buy alcohol, own property or even work independently. These codes minimized the rights and powers of the black people. Also, they reduced their movement towards fighting for the end of the slave trade in the south. Frederick Douglas was another African American abolitionist who was against the business. After having a conflict with his owner, he moved to New York and started lecturing. His began teaching at American Anti-Slavery society. With time he gained a bigger audience and a lot of support. Some of his followers were the individuals who believed that the slaves should be freed and be sent back to Africa-colonization movement.
Colonization movement was directly related to the American Colonization Society, and its members ranged from abolitionists. These people believed that the slaves had the right to go back to their countries of origin. The two movements were driven by one purpose-transportation of the freed African to their nations. The movement freed back many Africans and settled then in Liberia, but the campaign came to an end in the 1860s, but they had managed to free back over 13,000 slaves from the south. The abolitionists also used underground railway strategy. In this strategy, they used secrete routes and hidden houses to move Africans from the state. However, these movements worked very hard to free Africans from the nation many slaves arrived in the country due to the increased demand in various areas as mentioned earlier.
From the analyses, it is clear that the topic n ending slavery was a hot motion in the south. From the arguments variety of the people, including some Christians, believed that stopping the slave trade could bring a lot of negative impacts on the economy of southern. Also, many of the people insisted that slaves were owned property, and the owners had all rights to hold them. The slaves had a significant impact on the economy of the south, and this was one of the biggest reasons as to why they feared to ret them free since the economy could drop. Although these people were properties of their owners, they did not have to go through some treatments. The owners could have developed ways of dealing with them and treat them like any other human. Many of the owners could even end up disowning them once they got sick or grew old, especially those who worked in urban areas. The high demand created employment for many Africans, and ending slavery immediately could have resulted in more problems than solutions. Also, the lives of some of these slaves had developed, and they were more civilized. Therefore, from this ending, the slave trade could not provide enough solution since the Africans were willing to carry on the business. The owners could have formulated ways of treating them like any other human beings. Through this, they could work more and help in developing the economy as well as build their lives since many of them required jobs.
In conclusion, slavery in the eighties was divided into three main categories. These categories were the urban, rural and specialized slaves. These slaves were treated differently. The urban and the skilled were imposed to less mistreatment compared to the rural slaves who worked under strict supervision. The slavery-era brought about the division of human lines. There were the rich people who owned large farms and the ordinary citizens who owned small pieces of land, but they maintained the neighbourhood spirit among their neighbours. The motion on ending the slave trade brought about a division of views from various stakeholders.