How the Revolution Affected Slavery in the Us

Exam Paper 3:

How the Revolution Affected Slavery In the US

The American Revolution started when men from the colonies referred to as rebels by the British authority opened fire on British soldiers on April 19, 1775, British authorities decided to crush the rebels using armed force. This marked the beginning of progressive change that would altogether redefine the meaning of liberty and freedom for the entire American society. (Placeholder2) Between 1600 and 1860 enslaved African American adopted various forms of resistance, they used every means possible to either negotiate their labor time in the field, acts like feigning of illness, staging slowdowns, or committing acts of arson and sabotage were used as a form of resistance to their enslavement. In some cases most of them permanently escaped from their slavery. Thus the idea of the Underground Railroad to the free quickly comes to mind. Most of them headed southward or to cites or natural refuges like swamps The account of William and Ellen Craft in "Running a Thousand Miles For Freedom" A slave himself penned down this compelling statement after he was prevented from saying a final good bye to his fourteen years old sister was auctioned in the slave market, "But alas! We were only slaves and had no legal right; consequently were compelled to smother our wounded feelings, and crouch beneath the iron heel of despotism" This single act of made him a fugitive in search of his own fortitude and freedom across unfriendly territories.

Like William Craft most African American Slaves saw the Revolution as a road map to their own freedom. When the United State declared its independence in 1776, the slave population had grown to about one-fifth of the new nation's inhabitants. Slave ownership and slave trading was an accepted practice of colonial life. While the colonists were busy selling their patriotic newspapers that published the accounts of the sons of liberty and other issue as the unfair Stamp Act that imposed on them by the Monarchy. The same paper contained advertisement for sale of newly arrived slaves and notices seeking return of runaway ones too. No wonder in 1766 White Charlestonians had been shocked when their opposition to the Stamp Act inspired a group of blacks to parade about the city crying "Liberty". Nine year later the South Carolina Congress felt compelled to investigate how the struggle against the Britain had inspired among slaves in there colonies . Abolition in the North was slow. For slaves in the North hope for freedom rested on their own ability to escape and the voluntary action of their owners. Many northern slaveholders did not see it fit to liberate their slaves. In fact the last slaves in Connecticut did not become free until 1848.

The Revolution affected Slavery in America in three distinct dimensions, as follows: firstly there were Men in the colonies who out of religious conviction or other natural right of liberty defined the act of slavery as an unjust institution. They were known as the abolitionists. In early 1688 a group of German Quakers issued a "protest" regarding the right of blacks, declaring it as unjust "to have them slaves, as it is to have other whites' ones" Samuel Sewall, a Boston merchant, published The Selling of Joseph in 1700, which was the very first antislavery tract known to have been printed in America. In it Sewall argued that "All the sons of Adam have equal right unto liberty" . Jefferson was quoted to have unsuccessfully tried to include criticism of slavery in the Declaration of Independence

Other the other hand there were these group of enlightened slaves who as a result of the revolutionary trends taking place around have chosen to pursue their own freedom by any means necessary. Fugitives like William Craft, and Lemuel Haynes a black member of the Massachusetts militia and later a celebrated minister, who argued that

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