SLO 10: Shaping of New Things

I never really thought about the Constitution being controversial. Maybe because it wasn't taught in school as being so, it just never crossed my mind. Though, after listening to the James Horton I can easily see why it would be so. Slavery was not mentioned in the Constitution, though it is pretty wordy at protecting the rights of slave holders and eliminating the rights of slaves. James Horton also mentioned the federal protection of uprisings. At the time of the Constitution the main uprising they would have to prepare for is the revolts of slaves, and if they did so the federal government would be involved. 

Another thing that I learned from my research is how intensive the culture exchange was. So many different tribes were being ripped apart through the Atlantic Slave Trade and being forced into the same destiny. When they began new lives in their "new" homes they were bringing traditions from each others cultures. These traditions were being mushed to together to makes something new. Also, how the slave trade and people from it have shaped the culture of today. Composing music such as Jazz and Blues. Also, developing new religions such as voodoo. The world would be much different today without the influence the slave trade had brought. 

SLO 10: What Were Their Influences

As mentioned in previous posts my research is looking at the time surrounding the American Revolution 1763-1783. During the year of 1776, African Americans comprised about 20% of the entire population in the 13 mainland colonies (Zagarri)”. African American’s were a large group of people during the time of America becoming a nation of it’s own. Their presence during the war was not always acknowledged but they did have an influence, for both sides. The colonies shut down ports in a boycott against Britain. African slave soldiers of the tens of thousands were sent into the war. British made a deal with some that if they fight on the British lines they would be granted their freedom, America soon made the same arrangement for some. This directly affected the war and the history that was in the making.

Not only did their wartime presence help the cause of the American Revolution but their enforced labor help make the country of industrialism it is today.  The plantations were mimicking those that were already established in other parts of the world, such as sugar plantations. Here in America it was cotton. The south making up for the majority of the slave holdings had a more desired need for them. During the Revolution, the demand on slaves decreased though directly after the war the demand reached new heights.  After South Carolina reopened the trade in 1787 and when it legally ended in 1808, 100,000 Africans were purchased during those years (Berlin, Ira).

After, the American Revolution the Constitution was constructed. Several individuals did not feel that this document was one they could stand behind; some took the regard to burn copies. Others referred to this text as the “slave holder document (Horton, James)”. Slaves were considered property and this may have been why there are great lengths about property protection in the Constitution. Also, it is very limited in the wording about free man. The freed slaves, even the ones that helped in the fight to become a free nation, did not receive the same protection under the Constitution.

"During the time of the slave trade new culture was being created. The captives’ nationality was no more random than their age or sex. Europeans slavers developed specialties, in some measure to meet the demands of their customers on both sides of the Atlantic, whose preferences and needs grew increasingly well defined over time. Preferences on both side of the Atlantic determined, to a considerable degree, which enslaved Africans went where and when, populating the mainland with unique combinations of African peoples and creating distinctive regional variations in the Americas. Igbo peoples constituted the majority of African slaves in Virginia and Maryland, so much so that some historians have denominated colonial Virginia as “Igbo land.” A different pattern emerged in Lowcountry South Carolina and Georgia, where slaves from central Africa predominated from the beginning of large-scale importation, so that if Virginia was Igbo land, the Lowcountry might be likened to a new Angola.

But if patterns of African settlement can be discerned, they never created regional homogeneity. The general thrust of the slave trade was toward heterogeneity, throwing different people together in ways that undermined the transfer of any single culture. Mainland North America became a jumble of African nationalities. Their interaction—not their homogeneity—created new African American culture… But slowly, inexorably, the survivors made the new land their own. Transplanted Africans began to master the languages of North America, learned to traverse the countryside, formed friendships, pieced together new lineages from real and fictive kin, and created a new sacred world. Their children, who knew no other land, took root in American soil and made the land that had been forced on their parents their own. Like most other Americans, they too were the children of immigrants—but immigrants of a very different kind (Berlin, Ira)”.

Berlin, Ira. "The Origins of Slavery." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. 

Slavery And The Constituiton. By. James Horton. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.

Zagarri, Rosemarie, PHD. "Slavery in Colonial British North America." Teaching History.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. 

SLO 10: What Changed?

This week in SLO 10, I am expected to “Analyze historical developments across national, regional and cultural boundaries”. Therefore I am on a quest to find “How did the Atlantic Slave Trade contribute to history? How did the slave trade change nations? Change regions? How did the transatlantic slave trade contribute to cultural exchanges?” My hopes are to do just that, find the altering of nations, regions, cultural exchange that took place during the course of the Slave Trade.

SLO#2 For the Good or For their Self-Interests?

What I took away from my research, is that slavery may have been abolished because, well, the slaves were an obstacle that was hindering the economy. Though, I am certain that several individuals did feel the unwarranted treatment over the slaves it may not have been the only reason why slavery was abolished. I was really expecting to find a major economic deficit when slavery was abolished but I couldn't seem to locate anything devastating. That kind of strikes me as odd, the slaves were a major labor force for the colonies and when they were no longer forced for their labor, I expected something a little traumatic. I want to look into it more and try to seek something that shows economic figures surrounding slavery. 

SLO #2 For What Reason?

So it seems that during the American revolution, the revolt of the Americas from the British king, this was the time where anti-slavery was actively starting to be pushed for. In the are article titled The Impact of Slavery, ushistory.org states "The world's first ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY was founded in 1775 by Quakers in Philadelphia, the year the Revolution began" (The Impact of Slavery). A movement was being started within in the colonies that was never seen before. The same article then expresses, "Some Northern states banned slavery outright, and some provided for the gradual end of slavery. At any rate, the climate of the Revolution made the institution unacceptable in the minds of many Northerners, who did not rely on forced labor as part of the economic system". Then I began to question how did the ban of slavery effect the economic growth for the colonies. Rosemarie Zagarri obtaining her PHD from Yale reveals, "by the time of the American Revolution, slaves comprised about 60% of South Carolina's total population and 40% of Virginia's (Zagarri)". Whereas in the urban North it ranged from 2-25%. The majority of the South's slaves lived on large plantations and that meant that the majority of  white people did not own slaves. It was a smaller population of people who were involved with slave labor but they had large involvement.  The South was definitely more invested than the North in the slave trade. "Since Eli Whitney's 1793 invention of the cotton 'gin, the cotton industry became a lucrative field for Southern planters and farmers"(Mark Schulman). The industry made up for a majority of the South's revenues. The plantation owners were of course opposed to losing the main source of income. They felt a strong push from the North for doing with out slavery. What reasons did the North have against slavery? I thought of course it was them finally coming to their senses of the unjustness of slavery. However when researching, I came to a cross road as why the North wanted to abolish slavery. From The Gilder Lehman Institute of American History, article titled Was Slavery the Engine of American Economic Growth?, "Despite clear evidence that slavery was profitable, abolitionists--and many people who were not abolitionists--felt strongly that slavery degraded labor, inhibited urbanization and mechanization, thwarted industrialization, and stifled progress, and associated slavery with economic backwardness, inefficiency, indebtedness, and economic and social stagnation. When the North waged war on slavery, it was not because it had overcome racism; rather, it was because Northerners in increasing numbers identified their society with progress and viewed slavery as an intolerable obstacle to innovation, moral improvement, free labor, and commercial and economic growth(Was Slavery the Engine of American Economic Growth)". And then for a reason similar to what it was I was originally thinking, Zagarri expresses, "The widespread ownership of slaves had significant implications. During the battles with Britain during the 1760s and 1770s, American Patriots argued that taxing the colonies without their consent reduced the colonists to the status of slaves. Since individuals in all the colonies owned slaves, this rhetoric had enormous emotional resonance throughout the colonies and helped turn the colonists against the mother county. Moreover, once colonists started protesting against their own enslavement, it was hard to deny the fundamental contradiction that slavery established: enslavement for black people and freedom for white people. Awareness of this contradiction forced white Americans to look at slavery in a new light. If Americans chose to continue to enslave black people, they would have to devise new arguments to justify slavery. It was at this time that arguments about blacks' inherent racial inferiority emerged to rationalize the institution" (Zagarri). So what was it, were the colonist having empathy for the slaves because they felt that they too were not being treated fair? Or was if pure selfishness that slavery was hindering the growth for the colonies?

"Was Slavery the Engine of American Economic Growth?" The Gilder Lehman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. 

Zagarri, Rosemarie, PHD. "Slavery in Colonial British North America." Teaching History.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. 

Schulman, Mark. "Economics and the Civil War." History Central. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.

SLO #2 Changes within Societies

My quest this week is to, "Analyze broad patterns of change on both interregional scales and within complex societies". Just a reminder my search is limited to the years surrounding the American Revolution (1773-1793). Therefore I think my findings will be focused in on the Revolution itself and staying within the Americas. I really have no idea what it is I will find but I am setting off to search. Wish me luck!

SLO 7 What I Pulled from Research

It is apparent that during the eighteenth century, the British had made changes to grasp a steady decline in the mortality rate of African Slaves. The innovation of cooper plating of the hull on ships made a living condition a slightly more barable for the traveling slave. The dampness had subside and the trips were  moderatley quicker. Rainfall was now also being collected, therefore it is believed that dehydration didn't play as big of a role as it priorly did. The trips I am sure were still gruesome but they were more accommodated than in previous times. With survival rate on the rise and the more slaves the British were able to successfully transfer and sale, the more likely they were able to dominate the market of slave trade.