North American settlement of Jamestown in Virginia in 1619 to help produce lucrative crops such as tobacco.
Slavery spread throughout American settlements in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. African-American slaves helped build the economic institutions of the new nation. Many slaves were black Africans, a small proportion were Native Americans, and some Blacks had slaves Also.
The invention of the "cotton mill" in 1793 established the central importance of slavery for the southern economy.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, the expansion of Western America with the growing movement of abolitionists in the north had provoked a major protest against slavery, dividing the nation into the bloody American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865.
Although the Union's victory has freed 4 million slaves, the legacy of slavery has continued to influence American history, from the violent years of reconstruction (1865-1877) to the civil rights movement that emerged in the 1960s (a century after the liberation of the slaves).
The beginning of slavery in America:
- 17th century:
In the early seventeenth century, European settlers in North America resorted to African slaves as a more and more labor-intensive source of service than those who had a formal contract (most of whom were poor Europeans).
After 1619, slavery spread throughout American settlements, after a Dutch boat brought 20 Africans to the coast of the British colony of Jamestown in Virginia.
Between 1680 and 1700 slavery began to replace taxpayers in many American colonies and slavery. Burgesses' house became a new symbol of slavery in 1705, the first legislative assembly to combine existing legislation in previous centuries with the addition of the principle that "race White is superior and dominant against black race. "
- 18th century:
Since it is impossible to determine accurate statistics, some historians have estimated the number of slaves brought into the new world during the 18th century from 6 to 7 million slaves, where the African continent was deprived of its most healthy and vital men and women.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, slaves often worked on tobacco and rice farms on the southern coast.
Slavery legislation:
The early settlers followed African slaves in the same way that they were treated by contract workers, leaving them free from obligations after a certain period of time.
But the landowners realized that the contracting system was not in their interest, because the contract fell while the workers became more skilled and experienced, but in 1654 Cazur John became the first legal slave in the colonies.
He stated in his defense that he was a servant of religion, and should be treated as such, but the Northampton County Court rejected his claim that it was a private property of a settler, and because of this provision Africans without English assets became in danger of English laws.
However, Elisabeth K. Greenstedt, who was born of a mixed marriage, was able to obtain her freedom in accordance with English law. In order to prevent this situation from happening again, a law was issued in 1662 under the name Patrus Secunder Vintrim in Virginia.
"It is any born of a nation that has the same character as his mother whatever his father's origin."
This law gave freedom to individuals who had children to escape evasion of legal duties such as the recognition of offspring. In 1705, the Code of Slaves of Virginia included all importers from all non-Christian countries, including the Indians who were sold from their families, and it became legal to enslave any foreigner who was not a Christian.
The Boston Massacre (1770):
Occurred on 5 March 1770, when British soldiers shot at some Americans and killed five of them, and this incident was an important events that led to the outbreak of the American Revolution against Britain.
Crespus Atkes, a slave, was one of the first Americans to be killed by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre.
American Revolutionary War (1775-83):
American settlements launched the war to gain independence from Britain, and influenced political views and revolutions around the world.
The war started on April 19, 1775, when the British collided with the American revolutionaries in Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts for eight years, ending on September 3, 1783, when the Treaty of Paris between Britain and the United States was signed in which Britain recognized the independence of the United States America.
About 5,000 soldiers and black sailors fought on the American side during the Revolutionary War.
After the American Revolution, many settlers (especially in the north, where the slaves were relatively unimportant to the economy) began to associate the persecution of black slaves with the persecution they had been subjected to by the British, and to call for the abolition of slavery.
Importance of cotton mat:
- The economic crisis:
In the late 18th century, the south faced an economic crisis because the land used for growing tobacco was near collapse and depletion, and the continued increase of slaves in America seemed suspicious.
In the same period, the mechanization of the textile industry in England led to a significant increase in demand for US cotton, but the production of southern crops was limited because of the difficulty of removing seeds from raw cotton fibers manually.
- The invention of the cotton processor:
In 1793, a young American teacher, Elli Whitney, invented a cotton processor, a simple machine that effectively removed the seed. This machine was widely reproduced. Over the years, the south moved to a wide production of tobacco to cotton, On the work of slaves.
Slavery in the north and south:
Slavery was not common in the north; however, businessmen in the region were enriched by slave trade and investment in southern farms.
Between 1774 and 1804, all northern states abolished slavery, but the "private enterprise" maintained slavery in the south.
Although the United States Congress banned the African slave trade in 1808, the local slave trade flourished, and the number of slaves in the United States tripled over the next 50 years. By 1860, the number of slaves was about 4 million, States of cotton production in the South.
Slaves and Owners:
whom lived on large farms or small colonies, and most owners had less than 50 slaves per owner.
The owners wanted to make their slaves fully subordinate to them. They controlled their lives through a system of laws and restrictions imposed on them. They were forbidden to learn to read and write to prevent intellectual emancipation that might instill in the slaves ideas of escape or rebellion. Their actions and movements were restricted, In some states, religious rites are prohibited so that the slaves can not gather, and thus the ability to organize and rebel.
The corporal punishment of the slaves was also in the skin, burning, mutilation, tattoos, rape, hanging up, and sometimes, cannol punish for no reason, only to confirm the hegemony of the masters.
Many masters treated sexual slavery with slave women, rewarded philanthropists while brutally punishing the rebels, sexual assault was partly rooted in the culture of the southern states, where women, regardless of whether they were white or black, were still considered private property, In order to preserve "pure race", sexual relations between white women and black men were strictly forbidden, but relations between white men and black women were not prohibited.
The firm hierarchy between slaves (from more skilled domestic workers and skilled craftsmen, to field workers who had no privileges) helped keep them divided and less able to organize themselves against their masters.
families, and encouraged the masters to do so, yet did not hesitate to divide the families of slaves through sale or exclusion.
Revolutions of slaves:
Several revolutions of slaves (the most prominent of which were led by Gabriel Prosser in Richmond in 1800 and Dynamark Vecy in Charleston in 1822), but only a few succeeded.
The Nat Turner revolution in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831 was the most horrifying revolution for white owners. The Turner Group, which eventually numbered 75 black slaves, killed 60 whites in two days before forcing armed resistance from local whites And the armed forces coming from the states to crush them.
Proponents of slavery considered that the Turner Revolution was proof that blacks were brutal and despicable, and that an institution like slavery needed them to be disciplined. Fear of similar rebellions led to the southern states imposing more severe laws on their slaves to prevent them from education, movement and assembly.
In the north, the growing repression of southern blacks increased fire in the wake of the abolitionist movement that was then growing.
The abolition of slavery:
From the 1930s to the 1860s, the abolitionist movement in the Northern United States gained power under the leadership of many free blacks, including Frederick Douglas, and white supporters including William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the editor and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Published the best selling anti-slavery novel: Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852.
While the activity of many anti-slavery activists was based on their belief that the possession of slaves was a sin, others were more inclined to non-religious arguments, which held that the possession of slaves was backward and ineffective.
Underground Railway:
Free black and anti-slavery northerners began to help fleeing slaves escape from southern farms to the north through a wide network of safe houses in the early 1880s.
Known as underground railways, it gained real momentum in the 1830s, helped to secure slaves, estimated at 40,000 to 100,000 slaves, and helped spread anti-slavery sentiment in the north , And increased local efforts to persuade pro-slavery southerners with the determination of the northern rural people to defeat the institution that backs them.
Western Expansion and Controversy over Slavery in America:
The huge increase in the agricultural economy requires the displacement of large numbers of slaves to the west and south to work in these vast areas, historians estimated that nearly one million slaves were displaced to the new land between 1790 and 1860, and some historians have launched this period of displacement name The "middle transit", a reference to the "middle transit"; the name known for the transfer of slaves from Africa to the Americas, because the displacement of new settlements to the West produced many of the horrors of the African slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean and the resulting pain of loss and the band of parents , Where they took a priest Of their land and their families to unknown lands, and the living conditions of the very poor.
French settlers began to grow cane sugar in Louisiana and export it as a raw material product. When they moved to American colonies, Americans joined the sugar market. In Louisiana, between 1810 and 1830, the number of slaves increased from less than 10,000 to more than 42,000 slaves New Orleans became an important center for the transfer of slaves.
Missouri settlement:
In 1820, the North-South crisis worsened when immigrants settled in the Missouri and Maine regions joined the United States. There was disagreement over whether they should join two "free" or two "Carthaginian" col- leagues, In general, there was a balance between the North and South states.
The sharp debate over the federal government's right to reduce slavery in Missouri ended with the following settlement:
"Missouri was recognized within the union as Obaid and in Maine as a free state."
As for the new states in the West or joining the Union, the settlement has been reached with a latitude of 30 and 36 between the northern and southern states. Slavery is prohibited in the north of this line and is permitted in the south.
Although the Missouri compromise was designed to maintain a balance between free and slave states, it helped prevent regional fanaticism for only a temporary period.
1850 Settlement:
The crisis returned to its worst because of the Texas settlers' request to join the United States after their revolt against Mexico and their secession. In 1848, Mexico relinquished the United States to California, Utah and New Mexico following the war between the two countries. South The new states considered Obaid's states to be south of the Missouri agreed-upon latitude, but the northerners rejected this demand strongly and insisted that these states be free states because they wanted to encircle the slavery system within certain limits, to fade over time.
The conflict lasted until 1850, when another weak compromise was negotiated: California being a free state. The other states were left with the option to join free states or slave states after their election to the legislature. The settlement was settled in 1850.
The Kansas-Nebraska Law
time. In 1854, the settlers of the Kansas and Nebraska regions behind the Missouri River to the west asked to join the Union. As these two areas were located above the line, .
But the South opposed this, led by Stephen Douglas, who submitted a bill to Congress to leave the option to the legislature in both states after his election to decide whether or not to allow slavery. Because of the softness of the Liberal Party representing the northern states, Project Douglas, with this approval was considered the Missouri settlement canceled.
The Kansas-Nebraska law opened all new provinces to slavery by asserting popular sovereignty through a congressional decree, leading pro-opposition forces to slavery, bloodshed and civil war in the new Kansas state.
The law in the north also caused the fall of the old party party and the birth of a new party, the Republican Party, for all northerners.
In 1857, the case of one of the slaves, Dred Scott, was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States and claimed liberty because he had previously lived in a free state and a free zone, but the court's decision rejected Scott's claim and ruled that no black man Becomes a citizen of the United States, that Congress can not abolish slavery, and slavery has been declared in all provinces, causing the North's revolution.
John Brown's Revolution:
John Brown, an anti-slavery activist, attacked the Harper military base in Virginia in 1859 in an attempt to induce slaves to revolt but was captured and executed for his crimes. The anti-slavery northerners saw him as a martyr, while he was considered a deadly killer in the south.
Civil war:
Three months after the election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States, seven southern states separated into the US Confederation, followed by four other states after the civil war (1861-1865).
Despite Lincoln's opposition to slavery, the goal of the Central Union War was not to abolish slavery, but to preserve the United States as a state.
The abolition of slavery became the goal of war later, because of military necessity, the growing anti-slavery views in the north, and the self-liberation of many African-Americans who fled slavery as united groups swept the south.
Emancipation:
Five days after the Union's victory in the Battle of Antitem in September 1862, Lincoln issued an initial release of slaves. On 1 January 1863, he made a formal decision that "all persons held as slaves in the rebel areas are henceforth free. "
With the liberation of three million black slaves in the rebellious states, the liberation communiqué stripped the majority of the states of its working forces and placed the international community firmly in the hands of the Union.
About 186,000 Black Soldiers joined the Union army until the end of the war in 1865, and 38,000 lost their lives.
The total number of dead at the end of the war was 620,000 (out of 35 million), making it the most costly conflict in American history.
The remnants of slavery:
The thirteenth amendment adopted in 1865 formally abolished slavery, but the situation of the free blacks in the south after the war remained dangerous, and were important challenges to wait during the period of reconstruction (1965-1977).
The former slaves received their equal nationality and protection rights in the Constitution in the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and the right to vote in the 15 th Amendment in 1870.
But the constitution's provisions were often ignored or violated, and it was difficult for former slaves to gain a foothold in the economy after the war, because of black restrictive laws and contractual arrangements such as "the farmer."
Despite the participation of blacks in American political life, reconstruction has been disappointing for African Americans, and the rebirth of white rule, including the rise of racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, which won in the South in 1877.
20th century:
A century later, resistance to racial discrimination began in America during the era of slavery, leading to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, which achieved the greatest political and social gains of the blacks since the reconstruction. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most prominent political activists demanding the abolition of discrimination Racial discrimination.
Civil Rights Movement:
Between 1954 and 1968, the civil rights movement devoted its efforts to the abolition of racial discrimination against African Americans, particularly in the South of the United States, and the march in Washington to demand jobs and freedom to pressure President John F. Kennedy and then Lyndon Johnson.
Johnson supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which banned public discrimination, labor, trade unions, and the Right to Vote Act (1965) and expanded federal powers in the United States to ensure the protection of black American voters.
By 1966, the black power movement, which lasted until 1975, had expanded to the goals of the civil rights movement to include political and economic ones, self-sufficiency and freedom from white rule