Slavery and The Hope of Freedom in Black America

In 1492, Christopher Columbus set out on a journey to find a new way to India, but also to prove the Europeans that the world was round. As many know, he discovered America and thus many European settlers sailed to the ancient land to the west. Both the English and the Spanish managed to conquer various ground in America… and also wiping out many of the different tribes of native Americans. The Europeans needed cheap labor. They set their eye on Africa. By, again, conquering land, they sold, tortured, killed and sailed slaves to America in boats with a limit of 450 slaves. Consider that sometimes they went over 600! The slaves were chained by hands and feet, and many would die of illness and starvation. This meant that only half the slaves became effective workers. The slaves were black people from Africa which were sold on the Gold Coast and other places in West Africa. In 1502, the Portuguese and Spanish began sailing slaves to South American colonies. There is no exact number of all the slaves that were sailed to America, however, many historians believe that between 1540 and 1850 roughly 15 million slaves were brought to America. Here they would work on the cotton plantations and work as housemaids for the whites, also known as “house niggers”. Being a house nigger, was better than working on the plantations. Until 1640, slaves were described as servants who could work for free, but Maryland would soon be the first state to allow for selling and purchasing slaves. Slaves were treated better in the Northern States than in the South. This would of course have something to do with the outbreak of the Civil War. Slavery was a huge contradiction in the US. In the North, slavery was regarded as unhuman or at least bad, though in the south, slavery seemed normal. The slaves were being treated worse and worse in the South. If a slave didn’t do as what were told, they would be beaten. A slave by the name of Moses Roper received over 200 lashes by his slave owner and another slave, Francis Fredric, received 107 lashes for “bad behavior”. As more and more slaves were sailed to America, rebel groups were formed in the South. There’s a very famous incident about a slave called Nat Turner. He led a rebel force of slaves which killed 55 white men, women and children. When he was killed, his skin was made into a purse. In 1839, 53 slaves broke free of a Spanish ship sailing from Havana. Once they had taken control over the crew, they ordered to be sailed to Africa. They were tricked and was sailed to New York, where they were put on trial for murder and mutiny. The law supported the slaves, and they were later declared free men in 1841. But not only the slaves rebelled against the South; in the North, sympathy for the slaves grew, and an abolitionist movement began in Philadelphia in 1775. The members of the movement were called ‘abolitionists’. In 1852, a very famous book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published. This book heavily influenced the way of thinking about slavery. It sold over 300,000 copies in the North and has since been translated into 60 languages, also in Danish. In the South, slavery was important in the production of sugar and cotton. Once the slaves in the South heard about freedom in the North, many slaves began to run away from the plantations in hope of making it to the North. Many slaves would use the Underground Railroads to escape. The Underground Railroad was not a real underground railroad, but a term for the routes used by the slaves to escape the South. The slaves who ran away were called ‘ranaways’. The Southerners quickly learned about the ranaways and sent out bloodhounds to capture the slave. The slave owner would sometimes put a bounty on the slave in the newspaper, often with a reward for the capture. As the life on the plantations became more and more boring for the workers, they would often sing a song together while working. The most famous song is called Go Down, Moses. It compared their situation to that of Moses and the Hebrew in the Old Testament. The slaves became more and more Christian, which also explains why they began to sing. They sang about freedom and a better life in the future.