slavery essay

Slavery Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on slavery.

Slavery is a term that signifies the injustice that is being carried out against humans since the 1600s. Whenever this word comes up, usually people picture rich white people ruling over black people. However, that is not the only case to exist. After a profound study, historians found evidence that suggested the presence of slavery in almost every culture. It was not essentially in the form of people working in the fields, but other forms. Slavery generally happens due to the division of levels amongst humans in a society. It still exists in various parts of the world. It may not necessarily be that hard-core, nonetheless, it happens.

Impact of Slavery

Slavery is one of the main causes behind racism in most of the cultures. It did severe damage to the race relations of America where a rift was formed between the whites and blacks.

The impact of Slavery has caused irreparable damage which can be seen to date. Even after the abolishment of slavery in the 1800s in America, racial tensions remained amongst the citizens.

In other words, this made them drift apart from each other instead of coming close. Slavery also gave birth to White supremacy which made people think they are inherently superior just because of their skin color and descendant.

Talking about the other forms of slavery, human trafficking did tremendous damage. It is a social evil which operates even today, ruining hundreds and thousands of innocent lives. Slavery is the sole cause which gave birth to all this.

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The Aftermath

Even though slavery was abolished over 150 years ago, the scars still remain. The enslaved still haven’t forgotten the struggles of their ancestors. It lives on in their hearts which has made them defensive more than usual. They resent the people whose ancestors brought it down on their lineage.

Even today many people of color are a victim of racism in the 21st century. For instance, black people face far more severe punishments than a white man. They are ridiculed for their skin color even today. There is a desperate need to overcome slavery and all its manifestations for the condition and security of all citizens irrespective of race, religion , social, and economic position .

In short, slavery never did any good to any human being, of the majority nor minority. It further divided us as humans and put tags on one another. Times are changing and so are people’s mindsets.

One needs to be socially aware of these evils lurking in our society in different forms. We must come together as one to fight it off. Every citizen has the duty to make the world a safer place for every human being to live in.

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Slavery and the Civil War Essay

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Theme Essays. Diversity

Extra credit option. reconstruction, works cited.

During the period of 1820-1860, the life of white and black people in the South depended on developing the Institute of slavery which shaped not only social but also economic life of the region. The Institute of slavery was primarily for the Southern states, and this feature helped to distinguish the South from the other regions of the USA.

Slavery played the key role in shaping the economic and social life of the South because it influenced the trade and economic relations in the region as well as the social and class structure representing slave owners, white farmers without slaves, and slaves as the main labor force in the region.

The development of the South during the period of 1820-1860 was based on growing cotton intensively. To guarantee the enormous exports of cotton, it was necessary to rely on slaves as the main cheap or almost free workforce. The farmers of the South grew different crops, but the economic success was associated with the farms of those planters who lived in the regions with fertile soil and focused on growing cotton basing on slavery.

Thus, the prosperity of this or that white farmer and planter depended on using slaves in his farm or plantation. Slaves working for planters took the lowest social positions as well as free slaves living in cities whose economic situation was also problematic. The white population of the South was divided into slave owners and yeoman farmers who had no slaves.

Thus, having no opportunities to use the advantages of slavery, yeoman farmers relied on their families’ powers, and they were poorer in comparison with planters (Picture 1). However, not all the planters were equally successful in their economic situation. Many planters owned only a few slaves, and they also had to work at their plantations or perform definite duties.

Slaves were also different in their status because of the functions performed. From this point, the social stratification was necessary not only for dividing the Southern population into black slaves and white owners but also to demonstrate the differences within these two main classes (Davidson et al.).

As a result, different social classes had various cultures. It is important to note that slaves were more common features in spite of their status in families, and they were united regarding the culture which was reflected in their religion, vision, and songs. The difference in the social status of the white population was more obvious, and the single common feature was the prejudice and discrimination against slaves.

Picture 1. Yeoman Farmer’s House

The Civil War became the real challenge for the USA because it changed all the structures and institutions of the country reforming the aspects of the political, economic, and social life. Furthermore, the Civil War brought significant losses and sufferings for both the representatives of the Northern and Southern armies.

It is important to note that the situation of the Union in the war was more advantageous in comparison with the position of the Confederacy during the prolonged period of the war actions.

As a result, the South suffered from more significant economic and social changes as well as from extreme losses in the war in comparison with the North’s costs. Thus, the main impact of the Civil War was the abolition of slavery which changed the economic and social structures of the South and contributed to shifting the focus on the role of federal government.

The Civil War resulted in abolishing slavery and preserving the political unity of the country. Nevertheless, these positive outcomes were achieved at the expense of significant losses in the number of population and in promoting more sufferings for ordinary people. A lot of the Confederacy’s soldiers died at the battlefields, suffering from extreme wounds and the lack of food because of the problems with weapon and food provision.

During the war, the Union focused on abolishing slaves who were proclaimed free. Thus, former slaves from the Southern states were inclined to find jobs in the North or join the Union army.

As a result, the army of the Confederacy also began to suffer from the lack of forces (Davidson et al.). Moreover, the situation was problematic off the battlefield because all the issues of food provision and work at plantations and farms challenged women living in the Southern states.

The forces of the Union army were more balanced, and their losses were less significant than in the Southern states. Furthermore, the end of the war did not change the structure of the social life in the North significantly. The impact of the war was more important for the Southerners who had to build their economic and social life without references to slavery.

The next important change was the alternations in the social role of women. Many women had to work at farms in the South and to perform as nurses in the North (Picture 2). The vision of the women’s role in the society was changed in a way.

However, in spite of the fact that the population of the South had to rebuild the social structure and adapt to the new social and economic realities, the whole economic situation was changed for better with references to intensifying the international trade. Furthermore, the abolishment of slavery was oriented to the social and democratic progress in the country.

Picture 2. “Our Women and the War”. Harper’s Weekly, 1862

Diversity is one of the main characteristic features of the American nation from the early periods of its formation. The American nation cannot be discussed as a stable one because the formation of the nation depends on the active migration processes intensifying the general diversity. As a result, the American nation is characterized by the richness of cultures, values, and lifestyles.

This richness is also typical for the early period of the American history when the country’s population was diverse in relation to ethnicity, cultures, religion, and social status. From this point, diversity directly shaped the American nation because the country’s population never was identical.

The Americans respected diversity if the question was associated with the problem of first migrations and the Americans’ difference from the English population. To win independence, it was necessary to admit the difference from the English people, but diversity was also the trigger for conflicts between the Americans, Englishmen, and Frenchmen as well as Indian tribes.

The ethic diversity was not respected by the first Americans. The further importations of slaves to America worsened the situation, and ethnic diversity increased, involving cultural and social diversity.

Diversity was respected only with references to the negative consequences of slave importation. Thus, the Southerners focused on using black slaves for development of their plantations (Davidson et al.). From this point, white planers concentrated on the difference of blacks and used it for discrimination.

Furthermore, slavery also provoked the cultural and lifestyle diversity between the South and the North of the country which resulted in the Civil War because of impossibility to share different values typical for the Southerners and Northerners. Moreover, the diversity in lifestyles of the Southerners was deeper because it depended on the fact of having or not slaves.

Great religious diversity was also typical for the nation. White population followed different branches of Christianity relating to their roots, and black people developed their own religious movements contributing to diversifying the religious life of the Americans (Davidson et al.).

Thus, the aspects of diversity are reflected in each sphere of the first Americans’ life with references to differences in ethnicities, followed religions, cultures, values, lifestyles, and social patterns. This diversity also provoked a lot of conflicts in the history of the nation.

The role of women in the American society changed depending on the most important political and social changes. The periods of reforms and transformations also promoted the changes in the social positions of women. The most notable changes are typical for the period of the Jacksonian era and for the Civil War period.

The changes in the role of women are closely connected with the development of women’s movements during the 1850s and with the focus on women’s powers off the battlefield during the Civil War period.

During the Jacksonian era, women began to play significant roles in the religious and social life of the country. Having rather limited rights, women could realize their potentials only in relation to families and church work. That is why, many women paid much attention to their church duties and responsibilities.

Later, the church work was expanded, and women began to organize special religious groups in order to contribute to reforming definite aspects of the Church’s progress. Women also were the main members of the prayer meetings, and much attention was drawn to the charity activities and assistance to hospitals (Davidson et al.).

Women also played the significant role in the development of revivalism as the characteristic feature of the period. Moreover, the active church work and the focus on forming organizations was the first step to the progress of the women’s rights movements.

It is important to note that the participation of women in the social life was rather limited during a long period of time that is why membership and belonging to different church organizations as well as development of women’s rights movements contributed to increasing the role of women within the society. Proclaiming the necessity of abolishment, socially active women also concentrated on the idea of suffrage which was achieved later.

The period of the 1850s is closely connected with the growth of the women’s rights movements because it was the period of stating to the democratic rights and freedoms within the society (Davidson et al.). The next important event is the Civil War. The war influenced the position of the Southern white and black women significantly, revealing their powers and ability to overcome a lot of challenges.

The end of the Civil War provided women with the opportunity to achieve all the proclaimed ideals of the women’s rights movements along with changing the position of male and female slaves in the American society.

The development of the American nation is based on pursuing certain ideals and following definite values. The main values which are greatly important for the Americans are associated with the notions which had the significant meaning during the periods of migration and creating the independent state. The two main values are opportunity and equality.

These values are also fixed in the Constitution of the country in order to emphasize their extreme meaning for the whole nation.

Opportunity and equality are the values which are shaped with references to the economic and social ideals because all the Americans are equal, and each American should have the opportunity to achieve the individual goal. Nevertheless, in spite of the proclaimed ideals, the above-mentioned values were discussed during a long period of time only with references to the white population of the country.

The other values typical for the Americans are also based not on the religious, moral or cultural ideals but on the social aspects. During the Jacksonian era, the Americans focused on such values as the democratic society. Following the ideals of rights and freedoms, the American population intended to realize them completely within the developed democratic society (Davidson et al.).

Moreover, these ideals were correlated with such values as equality and opportunity. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that for many Americans the notions of democratic society, opportunity, and equality were directly connected with the economic growth. That is why, during long periods of time Americans concentrated on achieving freedoms along with pursuing the economic prosperity.

Thus, it is possible to determine such key values which regulate the social attitudes and inclinations of the Americans as equality and opportunity, freedoms and rights. In spite of the fact the USA was the country with the determined role of religion in the society, moral and religious aspects were not proclaimed as the basic values of the nation because of the prolonged focus of the Americans on their independence and prosperity.

From this point, opportunity, equality, freedoms, and rights are discussed as more significant values for the developed nation than the religious principles. The creation of the state independent from the influence of the British Empire resulted in determining the associated values and ideals which were pursued by the Americans during prolonged periods of the nation’s development.

The period of Reconstruction was oriented to adapting African Americans to the realities of the free social life and to rebuilding the economic structure of the South. The end of the Civil War guaranteed the abolishment of slavery, but the question of black people’s equality to the whites was rather controversial.

That is why, the period of Reconstruction was rather complex and had two opposite outcomes for the African Americans’ further life in the society and for the general economic progress of the states. Reconstruction was successful in providing such opportunities for African Americans as education and a choice to live in any region or to select the employer.

However, Reconstruction can also be discussed as a failure because the issues of racism were not overcome during the period, and the era of slavery was changed with the era of strict social segregation leading to significant discrimination of black people.

The positive changes in the life of African Americans after the Civil War were connected with receiving more opportunities for the social progress. Thus, many public schools were opened for the black population in order to increase the level of literacy (Picture 3). Furthermore, the impossibility to support the Southerners’ plantations without the free work of slaves led to changing the economic focus.

Thus, industrialization of the region could contribute to creating more workplaces for African Americans (Davidson et al.). Moreover, the racial and social equality should also be supported with references to providing more political rights for African Americans.

Reconstruction was the period of observing many black politicians at the American political arena. The question of blacks’ suffrage became one of the most discussed issues. From this point, during the period of Reconstruction African Americans did first steps on the path of equality.

Nevertheless, Reconstruction was also a great failure. The South remained unchanged in relation to the social relations between the whites and blacks. After the Civil War, segregation was intensified. The economic and social pressure as well as discrimination against the blacks was based on the developed concept of racism (Davidson et al.).

The Southerners preserved the prejudiced attitude toward the blacks, and prejudice and discrimination became the main challenge for African Americans in all the spheres of the life.

In spite of definite successes of Reconstruction, African Americans suffered from the results of segregation and discrimination, and they were prevented from changing their economic and social status.

Picture 3. Public Schools

Davidson, James, Brian DeLay, Christine Leigh Heyrman, Mark Lytle, and Michael Stoff. US: A Narrative History . USA: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Print.

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Introductory Essay: Slavery and the Struggle for Abolition from the Colonial Period to the Civil War

How did the principles of the Declaration of Independence contribute to the quest to end slavery from colonial times to the outbreak of the Civil War?

• I can explain how slavery became codifed over time in the United States.
• I can explain how Founding principles in the Declaration of Independence strengthened anti-slavery thought and action.
• I can explain how territorial expansion intensified the national debate over slavery.
• I can explain various ways in which African Americans secured their own liberty from the colonial era to the Civil War.
• I can explain how African American leaders worked for the cause of abolition and equality.

Essential Vocabulary

Slavery and the struggle for abolition from the colonial period to the civil war.

The English established their first permanent settler colony in a place they called Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Early seventeenth-century Virginia was abundant in land and scarce in laborers. Initially, the labor need was met mostly by propertyless English men and women who came to the new world as indentured servants hoping to become landowners themselves after their term of service ended. Such servitude was generally the status, too, of Africans in early British America, the first of whom were brought to Virginia by a Dutch vessel in 1619. But within a few decades, indentured servitude in the colonies gave way to lifelong, hereditary slavery, imposed exclusively on black Africans.

Because forced labor (whether indentured servitude or slavery) was a longstanding and common condition, the injustice of slavery troubled relatively few settlers during the colonial period. Southern colonies in particular codified slavery into law. Slavery became hereditary, with men, women, and children bought and sold as property, a condition known as chattel slavery . Opposition to slavery was mainly concentrated among Quakers , who believed in the equality of all men and women and therefore opposed slavery on moral grounds. Quaker opposition to slavery was seen as early as 1688, when a group of Quakers submitted a formal protest against the institution for discussion at a local meeting.

Anti-slavery sentiment strengthened during the era of the Revolution and Founding. Founding principles, based on natural law proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and in several state constitutions, added philosophical force to biblically grounded ideas of human equality and dignity. Those principles informed free and enslaved blacks, including Prince Hall, Elizabeth Freeman, Quock Walker, and Belinda Sutton, who sent anti slavery petitions to state legislatures. Their powerful appeal to natural rights moved legislators and judges to implement the first wave of emancipation in the United States. Immediate emancipation in Massachusetts, gradual emancipation in other northern states, and private manumission in the upper South dealt blows against slavery and freed tens of thousands of people.

Slavery remained deeply entrenched and thousands remained enslaved, however, in states in both the upper and lower South , even as northern leaders believed the practice was on its way to extinction. The result was the set of compromises the Framers inscribed into the U.S. Constitution—lending slavery important protections but also preparing for its eventual abolition. The Constitution did not use the word “slave” or “slavery,” instead referring to those enslaved as “persons.” James Madison, the “father” of the Constitution, thus thought the document implicitly denied the legitimacy of a claim of property in another human being. The Constitution also restricted slavery’s growth by allowing Congress to ban the slave trade after 20 years. Out of those compromises grew extended controversies, however, the most heated and dangerous of which concerned the treatment of fugitive slaves and the status of slavery in federal territories.

The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 renewed and enhanced slavery’s profitability and expansion, which intensified both attachment and opposition to it. The first major flare-up occurred in 1819, when a dispute over whether Missouri would be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state generated threats of civil war among members of Congress. The adoption of the Missouri Compromise in 1820 quelled the anger for a time. But the dispute was reignited in the 1830s and continued to inflame the country’s political life through the Civil War.

A cotton gin on display at the Eli Whitney Museum by Tom Murphy VII, 2007.

“U.S. Cotton Production 1790–1834” by Bill of Rights Institute/Flickr, CC BY 4.0

Separating the sticky seeds from cotton fiber was slow, painstaking work. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin (gin being southern slang for engine) made the task much simpler, and cotton production in the lower South exploded. Cotton planters and their slaves moved to Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama to start new cotton plantations. Many planters in the Chesapeake region sold their slaves to cotton planters in the lower South. This created a massive interstate slave trade that transferred enslaved persons through auctions and forced marches in chains and that also broke up many slave families.

In 1831, in Virginia, a large-scale slave rebellion led by Nat Turner resulted in the deaths of approximately 60 whites and more than 100 blacks and generated alarm throughout the South. That same decade saw the emergence of a radicalized (and to a degree racially integrated) abolitionist movement, led by Massachusetts activist William Lloyd Garrison, and an equally radicalized pro slavery faction, led by U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.

The polarization sharpened in subsequent decades. The Mexican-American War (1846–1848) brought large new western territories under U.S. control and renewed the contention in Congress over the status of slavery in federal territories. The complex 1850 Compromise, which included a new fugitive slave law heavily weighted in favor of slaveholders’ interests, did little to restore calm.

A few years later, Congress reopened the Kansas and Nebraska territories to slavery, thereby undoing the 1820 Missouri Compromise and rendering any further compromises unlikely. The U.S. Supreme Court tried vainly to settle the controversy by issuing, in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the most pro-slavery ruling in its history. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, a rising figure in the newly born Republican Party, declared the United States a “house divided” between slavery and freedom. In late 1859, militant abolitionist John Brown alarmed the South when he attempted to liberate slaves by taking over a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He was promptly captured, tried, and executed and thereupon became a martyr for many northern abolitionists.

Watch this BRI Homework Help video: Dred Scott v. Sandford for more information on the pivotal Dred Scott decision.

Leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Tubman, and James Forten all worked for the cause of abolition and equality.

As the debate over slavery continued on the national stage, formerly enslaved and free black men and women spoke out against the evils of slavery. Slave narratives such as those by Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northrup, and Harriet Jacobs humanized the experience of slavery. Their vivid, heartbreaking accounts of their own enslavement strengthened the moral cause of abolition. At the same time, enslaved men and women made the brave and dangerous decision to run away. Some ran on their own, and others used the Underground Railroad, a network of secret “conductors” and “stations” that helped enslaved people escape to the North and, after 1850, to Canada. The most famous of these conductors was Harriet Tubman, who traveled to the South about 12 times to lead approximately 70 men and women to freedom. Free blacks faced their own challenges. Leaders such as Benjamin Banneker, James Forten, David Walker, and Maria Stewart spoke out against racist attitudes and laws that sought to limit their political and civil rights.

This map shows the concentration of slaves in the southern United States as derived from the 1860 U.S. Census. The so-called “Border states”—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and after 1863, West Virginia—allowed slavery but remained loyal to the Union. Credit: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

By 1860, the atmosphere in the United States was combustible. With the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in November of that year, the conflict over slavery came to a head. Since Lincoln and Republicans opposed the expansion of slavery and called it a moral evil, seven slaveholding states declared their secession from the United States. And in April 1861, the war came. The next five years of conflict and bloodshed determined the fate of enslaved men, women, and children, and of the Union itself.

Reading Comprehension Questions

• What actions were taken to oppose slavery in the colonial period and Founding era?
• Why did the Constitution not use the words “slave” or “slavery”?
• The invention of the cotton gin
• The Mexican-American War
• Dred Scott v. Sandford
• The election of Abraham Lincoln as president
• How did formerly enslaved and free black men and women fight to end slavery?