LIBERTY OR SLAVERY? The American Revolution and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom.

LIBERTY OR SLAVERY?

The American Revolution and the Rise of the Cotton

Kingdom

ON THE EVE OF REVOLUTION

The problems of the 1763 Proclamation Line Why were the colonists

angry, especially in the South?

Take a look at the claims on this map why are they angry?

THE GREAT CONTRADICTION

How could the reality of American slavery

coexist with the ideal of American liberty?

POPULATION GROWTH

In 1700, there were about 250,000 Europeans and African Americans in the colonies

By 1775, that number had increased 10-fold to 2.5 million

The great majority of African Americans lived, and were enslaved, in the southern colonies. What are the numbers in Virginia and South Carolina?

EDMUND BURKE SPEECH TO PARLIAMENT ON CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES, 1774

“In such a people the haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible”

What does Burke argue is the root of liberty in America and what supports its growth?

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Summary View of the Rights of British America Why would the British block colonial efforts to put an end to the slave

trade?

Declaration of Independence He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidels powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. He has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

THE WAR AND THE SLAVES

Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation- November 1775

John and Henry Laurens of South Carolina Ubi Libertas ibi Patria “We have sunk the Africans & their

descendants below the Standard of Humanity…”

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH: VIOLENCE

Colonel Banastre Tarleton

Andrew PickensThomas “Gamecock” Sumter

“Lighthorse” Harry Lee

Francis “Swampfox” Marion

MAJOR BATTLES OF THE SOUTHERN THEATER

1778: Savannah captured by British

1780: Charleston falls, Camden falls to British

1780: King’s Mountain, American victory

1781: Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse, Yorktown, decisive American victories

THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY

American leaders were often torn between their consciences and self-interest on the issue of slavery.

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” There was a growing sense that

slavery was an evil. A downturn in the market for tobacco led some to assert that slavery would slowly

fade away.

WHAT DID THE REVOLUTION DO FOR SLAVES?

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 1787

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective

numbers, which shall be determined by adding the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians

not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and

within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of

representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one

representative....

TOWARDS THE COTTON KINGDOM Discussion on Alexander FalconbridgeWhat information does Falconbridge’s account provide us about how Africans were taken into slavery, who participated in the slave trade in Africa, and what role commerce and trade played in the slave trade system? 

How would Falconbridge’s descriptions of the slave trade be of assistance to those who opposed slavery?

WHY DID SOUTHERNERS FEEL THAT SLAVERY WOULD EVENTUALLY “DIE OUT” ON ITS OWN?

KING COTTON!

THE COTTON KINGDOM SPREADS WEST

Between 1820 and 1860, the number of slaves in Alabama leaped from 41,000 to 435,000 and in Mississippi from 32,000 to 436,000. In

the same period the increase in Virginia was only from 425,000 to 490,000. Between 1840 and 1860 approximately 410,000 slaves

moved from the Upper South to the cotton states—either accompanying masters who were themselves migrating to the

Southwest or sold to planters already there.

THE COTTON KINGDOM

Discussion of Fitzhugh and OlmsteadWhy does Fitzhugh argue that ideas about abolishing slavery is racism against African Americans?

What grounds does Fitzhugh give for his criticism of capitalism? Why?

What do the passages tell us about slavery? What was Olmstead’s motivation for writing?