In early September of 1739, there was an uprising of slaves in South Carolina. This uprising, referred to as the Stono Rebellion, resulted in the death of forty plus whites and forty plus blacks. After the rebellion, the state legislature decided to take a legal action to prevent another rebellion, such as Stono, from happening. In 1740, the government passed the Negro Act, which, supposedly, regulated how whites and blacks behaved. The officials made the assumption that this act would, in a way, benefit both whites and slaves, but, in reality, it did not. Although it restricted certain authorities that white slaveholders had over their slaves, the Negro Act still provided them with new powers that, in most cases, were disadvantageous to the black slaves. It was in response to the fear of the citizens, and it caused the further degradation of the slaves ' …show more content…
The article explained that the slaves had no identity outside of his/her master: "without the master the slave does not exist, and he is sociable only through his master" (Patterson 4). The government (and slave-masters) wanted to annihilate any individualization that a slave had. The act strengthen the power the whites had over any slaves (or even freemen), and it stripped anything a slave could identify as self-dignity. It may not be clearly stated, but the Negro Act was created to control blacks as if they were pets. Based on the harsh outcomes of simple violations, it is more than evident that the state of South Carolina did not place the lives of the slaves in their concerns. What were the actual chances of any of this act being implemented on behalf of the slave masters or other whites? It is a completely one-sided deal, and other citizens would have been more than willing to turn the blind eye to the unlawful treatment that these slaves were
On September 9, 1739, as many as one hundred African and African American slaves were living within twenty miles of Charleston, South Carolina. This rebellious group of slaves joined forces to strike down white plantation and business owners in an attempt to march in numbers towards St. Augustine, Florida where the Spanish could hopefully grant their freedom. During the violent march toward Florida, the Stono Rebellion took the lives of more than sixty whites and thirty slaves. Ranking as South Carolina’s largest slave revolt in colonial America, Peter Charles Hoffer, a historian at the University of Georgia and author of Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739 tries to reinterpret the Stono Rebellion and challenges the reader to visualize what really went on to be a bloody uprising story in American History.
A black slave had entered the State of South Carolina earlier and had incited a small but effective rebellion ...
Even in Post-Civil War times, they still maintained the master and slave relationship until the 13th amendment came about. After the 14th amendment came about, the colored had more breathing room but that didn 't stop the whites from looking down on them. That was part of their culture where the blacks were still slaves in their minds but the times are changing and they just couldn’t cope with that. During the Supreme court case “Plessy v. Ferguson” the majority of the Justices ruled that separate and equal was the precedent. This shows that changing the law alone wouldn 't change the southern attitude towards race! This man named Homer Plessy is 1/8th black and is still considered black, they made separate bathrooms and water fountains specifically for each race because sharing just was not an option. This shows that whites at the time had a hard time coping with the
Document 13-2 is a journal based on plantation rules for slaves all in a journal written by Bennet Barrow on May 1st of 1838. He named his journal, “Highland Plantation Journal” so he could reference back to his rules he told his slaves working on his plantation. Barrow wrote this journal because he wanted his slaves to follow a guideline of rules and regulations so they know what their master expects, and in this case, their master would be Barrow. The first few lines indicate that all men and women of colored skin should have these rules and regulation imposed on them. Barrow in his journal his very straight forward and gets to the point, he states, “No negro shall leave at anytime without my permission.” Just by this statement, one can jump to conclusion of the amount of grief and sorrow a slave goes through on a daily basis just by this one out of many rules.
South Carolina was one of the only states in which the black slaves and abolitionists outnumbered their oppressors. Denmark Vesey’s slave revolt consisted of over nine-thousand armed slaves, free blacks, and abolitionists, that would have absolutely devastated society in South Carolina for slave owners, and could have quite possibly been a major step towards the abolishment of slavery in the United states. Robertson succeeded in describing the harsh conditions of slaves in pre-civil war Charleston, South Carolina. This book also helped me to understand the distinctions between the different groups. These groups including the black slaves, free blacks, extreme abolitionists, and the pro-slavery communities.
In 1863 to 1877 Reconstruction brought an end to slavery, it paved the way for the former slaves to become citizens. The African Americans wanted complete freedom. However, that right became a setback and were seen as second class citizens. Before the end of the Reconstruction, a legislation was passed called the Jim Crow law. The law enforced the segregation of people of African descent. The legislation was a system to ensure the exclusion of racial groups in the Southern States. For example, separate transportation law, school division, different waiting rooms both at the bus terminals and hospitals, separate accommodations, marriage law and voting rights. The Jim Crow law was supposed to help in racial segregation in the South. Instead,
Because the American slave system was based on this principle of human chattlehood, slaves were confined in many ways that handicapped them from even being able to act or live as a human being. The very idea of human chattelhood gave the master unlimited control over his defenseless slave. Chattels are not permitted to get married, acquire or hold property. Chattels cannot have rights and hence the slave has no rights. Chattels can be bought and sold and so justifies the existence of the slave trade. Chattels do not have any claim to legal protection, therefore the slave has none and must tolerate the cruelties of slavery. Chattels are not to be educated or instructed in religion. And lastly, chattels do not possess the freedom of speech and of the press.
This act allowed southern slave owners to get their slaves back when they escaped to the North. That is why this act was important and critical to southern survival. The view of this act by the North was the opposite, especially from those who were black, they feared this act. The blacks in the North were terrified that this act would make it so they could be ushered back to the south, even if they were innocent. This led to the creation of resistance groups in the North.
Slave owners not only broke slave families up, but they also tried to keep all the slaves illiterate. In the book slave owners thought, "A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master-to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. If you teach a slave how to read, they would become unmangeable and have no value to his master." Masters thought that if a slave became literate then they would rebel and get other slaves to follow them. Also masters lied to slaves saying learning would do them no good, only harm them. They tried using that reverse psychology to make it seem like what they were doing was right.
After the Civil War was over and the Reconstruction-era began, changes were made such as the 13th amendment in 1865, which forbid slavery in the United States. Even though slavery was now prohibited, freed blacks were now left alone to struggle finding simple things like a roof to live in and a job to work for. Meanwhile, President Abraham Lincoln wanted to give the south humane conditions for them to be accepted back into the union and also wanted to give African Americans and former soldiers the right to vote, but that wasn’t very successful when put into the hands of Congress. Soon after Lincoln was killed in 1865, President Andrew Johnson came into presidency and changed the conditions giving African Americans a harder time adapting to their new lives as freedmen. Furthermore, the south became very violent against the blacks and came up with black codes, which put freed blacks as closely as possible back into a slave state. These black codes prohibited interracial marriages, the ownership of guns or liquor, congregation in large groups and had curfews for these freedmen. Furthermore, these black codes forced the freedmen to sign annual work contracts that were offensive and offered only in the agricultural f...
Throughout this course we learned about slavery and it's effects on our country and on African Americans. Slavery and racism is prevalent throughout the Americas before during and after Thomas Jefferson's presidency. Some people say that Jefferson did not really help stop any of the slavery in the United States. I feel very differently and I will explain why throughout this essay. Throughout this essay I will be explaining how views of race were changed in the United States after the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, and how the events of the Jeffersonian Era set the stage for race relations for the nineteenth century.
Slavery is the idea and practice that one person is inferior to another. What made the institution of slavery in America significantly different from previous institutions was that “slavery developed as an institution based upon race.” Slavery based upon race is what made slavery an issue within the United States, in fact, it was a race issue. In addition, “to know whether certain men possessed natural rights one had only to inquire whether they were human beings.” Slaves were not even viewed as human beings; instead, they were dehumanized and were viewed as property or animals. During this era of slavery in the New World, many African slaves would prefer to die than live a life of forced servitude to the white man. Moreover, the problem of slavery was that an African born in the United States never knew what freedom was. According to Winthrop D. Jordan, “the concept of Negro slavery there was neither borrowed from foreigners, nor extracted from books, nor invented out of whole cloth, nor extrapolated from servitude, nor generated by English reaction to Negroes as such, nor necessitated by the exigencies of the New World. Not any one of these made the Negro a slave, but all.” American colonists fought a long and bloody war for independence that both white men and black men fought together, but it only seemed to serve the white man’s independence to continue their complete dominance over the African slave. The white man must carry a heavy
Wood, Peter H. Black Majority, Negroes in Colonial South Carolina: From 1670 through the Stono Rebellion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. Print.
The life of a slave was subservient to the master. They had to obey without question or face punishment. Even if the master was less abusive and demanding, the slave still held resentment, for his life was not his own. For slave owners, the main object was to keep financially valuable slaves alive and working. That was all that mattered. They were items, property and a commodity to be owned or sold for profit. Slave owner’s supplied only the minimum needs for survival, little food was given and often that was not fit to eat. Living conditions were poor such as no beds or bedding. The work was grueling and the hours were long for the slave. They often got very little sleep and they were watched during the day to make sure they were not idle and at night to be sure they didn’t escape. They were dominated by the people that owned them.
“For the Slave South to deter its most potentially destructive slave resistance, potential fugitives had to dread coercion outside as well as inside their masters’ estate” and the act provided that coercion. The free blacks, at the very least inspiring images to slaves, encouraged potential runaways through their lifestyles and knowledge. Without these slaves’ attempts to gain freedom, the act would not have been necessary. The northern states would not have made laws allowing citizens not to participate in slave catching, and the southern states would not have been nervous about northern state compliance with the return of their