1. Often when reading texts on this history of North American slavery, a number of generalizations are made to coalesce the experiences of enslaved Africans and African Americans. However, it is important to note that there were variations and that there was not just one experience. Keeping this in mind and drawing from your readings for the week (as well as last week), think about what factors (environmental, social, cultural, etc.) contributed to different experiences and how did they contribute. Discuss at least TWO (2) factors.
2. Slave narratives rank among the earliest and most important African American contributions to the American literary canon. These works offer important insights into the lived experiences of the enslaved and they are a critical resource for historians and other scholars who document the African American experience. These narratives are also important because they formed the basis of the abolition movement, which focused on ending the heinous institution of slavery. Using the narratives from this week’s readings, provide TWO (2) examples of how slave narratives could be used to advocate for the end of slavery. Make sure to draw specific examples from our readings.
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For both questions, you should draw your analysis from materials in this course FIRST, but you may incorporate other materials that you have read and/or studied outside of this course. And please remember to cite your sources.
http://dlas.uncg.edu/
https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/resources/wpa.html
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2000/winter/hydra-slave-trade-documentation-1.html
African american history
1
The Southern Argument for Slavery from USHistory.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. ©2008–2014, ushistory.org. UMGC has modified this work and it is available under the
original license.
The Southern Argument for Slavery
Those who defended slavery rose to the challenge set forth by the Abolitionists. The defenders of
slavery included economics, history, religion, legality, social good, and even humanitarianism, to further
their arguments.
Southern slaveholders often used biblical passages to justify slavery.
Defenders of slavery argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and
killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy.
The cotton economy would collapse. The tobacco crop would dry in the fields. Rice would cease being
profitable.
Defenders of slavery argued that if all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread unemployment
and chaos. This would lead to uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. They pointed to the mob’s “rule of
terror” during the French Revolution and argued for the continuation of the status quo, which was
providing for affluence and stability for the slaveholding class and for all free people who enjoyed the
bounty of the slave society.
2
Some slaveholders believed that African Americans were biologically inferior to their masters. During the 1800s,
this arguement was taken quite seriously, even in scientific circles.
Defenders of slavery argued that slavery had existed throughout history and was the natural state of
mankind. The Greeks had slaves, the Romans had slaves, and the English had slavery until very recently.
Defenders of slavery noted that in the Bible, Abraham had slaves. They point to the Ten
Commandments, noting that “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, … nor his manservant, nor his
maidservant.” In the New Testament, Paul returned a runaway slave, Philemon, to his master, and,
although slavery was widespread throughout the Roman world, Jesus never spoke out against it.
Defenders of slavery turned to the courts, who had ruled, with the Dred Scott Decision, that all blacks —
not just slaves — had no legal standing as persons in our courts — they were property, and the
Constitution protected slave-holders’ rights to their property.
Defenders of slavery argued that the institution was divine, and that it brought Christianity to the
heathen from across the ocean. Slavery was, according to this argument, a good thing for the enslaved.
John C. Calhoun said, “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the
present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and
intellectually.”
Defenders of slavery argued that by comparison with the poor of Europe and the workers in the
Northern states, that slaves were better cared for. They said that their owners would protect and assist
them when they were sick and aged, unlike those who, once fired from their work, were left to fend
helplessly for themselves.
JAMES THORNWELL, a minister, wrote in 1860, “The parties in this conflict are not merely Abolitionists
and slaveholders, they are Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red Republicans, Jacobins on the one side
and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other.”
3
The violence of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave revolt frightened many southern slaveholders. Such unrest was used by
many as a reason to continue slavery.
When a society forms around any institution, as the South did around slavery, it will formulate a set of
arguments to support it. The Southerners held ever firmer to their arguments as the political tensions in
the country drew us ever closer to the Civil War.
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