Preamble
The first recorded slaves brought to America were landed by ship in late August of 1619, on the coast of Hampton, Virginia. The ship had about 20 Africans who were purchased by Jamestown businessmen in exchange for food and water.
In America the slave trade was abolished in 1807, whilst slavery ended in 1865.
The last slaves were smuggled to America aboard the slave ship the Clotilda, which landed in Mobile Bay, in Alabama in 1859. This was a smuggling operation since trading in slaves had been banned in 1807.
For the record, some native American tribes had African slaves.
Reasons for the Abolition of American Slavery.
- The economy
Industrialisation was more rapid in the slave free northern States compared to the slave holding southern states. In all measures of wealth, the north was becoming richer. The slave states were falling behind till the invention of the cotton gin when demand for slave grown cotton reversed the widening wealth gap, briefly, for this was the calm before the storm. Americans who became as rich as Mansa Musa were all from the industrial north. Even in areas where slavery was profitable, the received wisdom was that with free labour the returns would have been at least 400 percent higher. The inescapable fact was those territories that were industrialising and using wage labour were developing faster than slave territories.
In the larger scheme of things, continuing with slavery was akin to looking at the future and moving backwards, to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill, a member of the Eugenics Society.
- Slave Revolts
Occasionally, in the United States mainland, slaves attempted to remove their fetters using their own blood and the blood of their tormentors. The most well-known rebellions in the USA were the Jemmy-led Stono River rebellion of 1739 in South Carolina and the one led by Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831. In all these rebellions, there was loss of lives on both sides. In America, often such efforts were futile, but they did pose a clear and present danger, keeping the slaveholders on edge.
- Religious Pressure
Many churches split into emancipation supporting northern and slave supporting southern states. The antislavery churches tried to preach equality and freedom. Their message was heeded by some whites in the northern states but disparaged in the southern states.
The slave supporting American churches were deeply invested and used the Bible selectively as a crutch and as a salve to shore up their evil and sinful denigration of Africans. They even came up with a “Slave Bible” that they gave to converted slaves to use. This Slave Bible had all references to equality removed!
- Moral Outrage
There was some pressure from members of the public and from local and international slave abolition societies. However, this pressure could only be exerted in the northern states. Doing so in the south could result in being lynched. Books, like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, were mirrors that reflected the awful society America had become, moving the abolition needle minutely, but positively.
Pressure from Congress was attempted by lawmakers. But in nearly all instances, this was thwarted by the better financially backed southern lawmakers with their equally well-oiled lobbyists. In addition, because of the Three Fifths Clause, the southern slave states punched way above their weight in Congress.
- American Civil War
America faced a fork in the road: to end slavery or not to end slavery? In the end they chose to end slavery, and the American Civil War was the guillotine that did the job. So, what led to setting up this guillotine? The simplified version of the main reason for the American Civil War was slavery. The complicated version of the main reason for the American Civil War was slavery.
The Confederate states came up with other specious reasons — like state rights — but always inserted and pivoted to their avid desire to keep the stolen Africans as chattels, personal properties. So, slavery caused the American Civil War. In turn, the American Civil War resulted in the abolition of slavery.
The effect of the Union victory over the Confederate states was the Thirteenth Amendment to end slavery in 1865. Before that the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to free slaves in Confederates states was to get them to fight for the Union. In practice, the slaves were not free. But this was a clever ploy by President Abe Lincoln because it made the Civil War about freedom.
Clarification On the Role of Abraham Lincoln
Mr Abraham Lincoln was presumably against slavery. But when he was president, he did not want to take any decisive action against the scourge, if that action would lead to the breakup of America. Mr Lincoln wanted to have his cake and eat it. Meaning that at the time, ending slavery and keeping the Union were mutually exclusive. Many Americans in the north did not want slavery to continue in the Union. In contrast, many Americans in the southern states were prepared to fight to the death rather than give up slavery.
Lincoln did not set out to free the 4 million slaves. His focus was to preserve the unity of the USA. If the means to do that was to keep slavery alive then Lincoln’s soul was well with that. If on the other hand abolishing slavery was the way to keep the Union, then Lincoln was okay with that as well. Lincoln had no equivocation on these choices.
Compensated emancipation was not on the table as the Confederates refused to give up slavery except over their dead bodies, a wish that for many, came to pass. The price: 600,000 to 700,000 dead in the American Civil War. So, if you’re an African, reflect deeply: these slave holding Americans believed so earnestly in slavery that they were willing to die rather than get compensation for their slaves. It is so chilling and baffling that most slaveholders chose death over freeing another human being.
A British clergyman, Charles H. Spurgeon, tried. Spurgeon had warned Americans that if they did not stop their sinful practice of slavery, then later it would only be washed away by blood. But because of the pieces of silver they were making from the golden calf of African slavery, the Americans were livid. They burned Spurgeon’s writings in rage and threatened to lynch him if he ever set foot again in America.
Unfortunately, cotton had made American slaveholders cloth-eared, and so it came to pass that the blood of between 600,000 to 700,000 Americans was needed to wash away the stain of slavery.
