Slavery In America

SlaveryIn

America

The first Africans in America arrived as slaves in

Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.

Slaves In America

Landing of Slaves in Jamestown, 1619.

Slaves were brought from Africa in ships like this one, and were seated right next to each other, jammed together, with no room to move.

The Slave Trade Following a

triangular route between Africa, the Caribbean, North America,

and Europe, slave traders delivered

Africans in exchange for

products.

After ships docked in the New World, slaves, displayed like livestock, were forced to

endure rough inspections from head to foot. Prospective buyers evaluated their teeth and

bones, pawing over them as if they were animals.

A slave market in Atlanta, Georgia ,

1864

LIFE AS A SLAVEHouse SlavesHouse slaves

often had easier lives than the

field slaves. They were cooks,

maids, servants, and nannies.

Field SlavesField SlavesSlaves were

bought to work inplantations,

where labor was intensive. They

worked from sunrise to sunset

every day.

When slave children reached the age of 12, they were

sent to work in the fields, where they worked from

sunrise to sunset, just like the adults.

Slaves were chained together when they walked to the plantations to

work. Slave owners felt they could deny basic human rights to their slaves.

The Slave Codes The Slave

Codes robbed the Africans of their freedom.

If slaves resisted the code, they

could be badly beaten, or even killed.

PUNISHMENT FOR SLAVES

Slaves were punished in

many ways. If a slave tried to run away, his foot, or leg would be cut

off.

The most common way of punishing a slave was by whipping them.

Peter, a slave from Louisiana, in 1863, shows scars that are a result of a whipping by his owner. It took two months to recover from this beating.

After beating and whipping their slaves, owners would sometimes

leave the slaves to die, as a lesson to others.

“Stocks” were used as a

common way of punishing

slaves.

The death-rate among slaves was

high. To replace their

losses, owners

encouraged their slaves

to have many children.

The Civil War

After the 1860 presidential election, the South seceded from

the Union and thus began the Civil War. The Emancipation

Proclamation of 1863 made the abolition of slavery an official war

goal, and it was implemented throughout the war.

The Ending of Slavery

With the ratification of the

Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in December 1865,

slavery was officially abolished in all areas of the

United States.

Thirteenth Amendment Section 1.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for

crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist

within the United States.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

LIFE AFTER SLAVERY When slavery

ended, ex-slaves were allowed to

wonder freely, but they still

didn’t have the same rights as everyone else.

Efforts to re-enslave the freed

men led Congressional Republicans to seize control of the country’s

“Reconstruction” from President

Andrew Johnson, a strong supporter

of slavery.

The Fourteenth Amendment Representatives from the former

Confederate states and their Congressional delegation, pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and write the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to extend citizenship rights to African Americans. They

were now guaranteed equal protection under the law.

Frederick Douglass

was one of the foremost

leaders of the abolitionist movement,

which fought to end slavery within the

United States, even before the Civil War began.

America was the only region in the western hemisphere in which slavery was overthrown

by force of arms, and the only region in which former slaves received

civil and political rights.

Even with the rights former slaves received, it was many years before anything really

changed for the better for black Americans, or has it.

SlaveryIn

America

Created by Kendra VillanuevaThank You.