Modern Day Slavery Presentation

Thesis:

Harriet Tubman's greatest achievements were working with the Underground Railroad, working with the Union Army, and having time to help a better cause.

Paragraph 1:

Harriet Tubman helped slaves escape from their plantations by being a conductor of the Underground Railroad.

Paragraph 2:

She also helped free slaves during the Civil War with the Union Army.

Paragraph 3:

Finally, Harriet Tubman helped people after the Civil War.

Textbook Reading pages 476 - 481

New Land Renews Slavery Dispute:

• After winning the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States added more than 500,000 square miles of land, but it was divided into two parts, one free and one enslaved, after President James K. Polk wanted to extend the 36°30' line to the West coast
• Popular Sovereignty- The idea that political power belongs to the people
• Representative David Wilmot offered the Wilmot Proviso during the war, but even though the northern-controlled House passed the document, the South had more power in the Senate, so the Wilmot Proviso did not pass. This debate showed growing sectionalism
• Wilmot Proviso- A document stating that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of [the] territory"
• Sectionalism- Favouring the interests of one section or region over the interests of the entire country
• When the Democrats and the Whigs did not take a clear position on slavery in the presidential campaign of 1848, antislavery northerners formed the Free-Soil Party because they worried that slave labour would mean fewer jobs for white workers. They chose former president Martin Van Buren as their candidate, and they won 10% of the popular vote, but Whig candidate Zachary Taylor won
• Free-Soil Party- Antislavery northerners formed this party, which supported the Wilmot Proviso
• Since California's population grew rapidly due to the California gold rush, they applied to join the Union as a state instead of as a territory
• Most Californians opposed slavery, and many forty-niners came from free states. However, if California became a free state, the balance between free and slave states would change, favouring the free states
• Jefferson Davis, a senator of Mississippi, said, "We are about permanently to destroy the balance of power between the sections." He and many other southerners did not want California to enter the Union as a free state

Compromise of 1850

• Since Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky had experience in proposing compromises, he proposed that California would enter the Union as a free state, popular sovereignty would decide on slavery in the rest of the Mexican Cession, Texas would give up land east of the upper Rio Grande so that the government would pay Texas's debts from when it was an independent republic, The slave trade, but not slavery, would end in the nation's capital, and a more effective fugitive law would be passed
• Senator William Seward of new York defended antislavery views and wanted California to be admitted without conditions, but Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina said that it would destroy the nation's balance and warned people of issues that would later start the Civil War. He also asked that the slave states be allowed to secede from the Union
• Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts favoured Clay's plan and criticised northern abolitionists and southerners who talked of secession
• A compromise that achieved the majority of Clay's proposals was enacted that year and seemed to settle most disputes between free and slave states
• Texas agreed to give up its land claims in New Mexico in exchange for financial aid from the federal government, and the compromise outlawed the slave trade in the District of Columbia and established a new fugitive slave law
• Secede- Formally withdraw
• Compromise of 1850- The compromise that enabled California to enter the union as a free state, and it divided the rest of the Mexican Cession into two territories, Utah and New Mexico, where popular sovereignty would decide whether to allow slavery or not

Fugitive Slave Act

• Due to the newly passed Fugitive Slave Act, slaveholders were permitted to take suspected fugitives to U.S. commissioners, who decided their fate
• Slaveholders could use testimony from white witnesses, but accused enslaved African Americans, as well as people who hid or helped a runaway slave, could not testify. Commissioners who rejected a slaveholder's claim earned $5, but if they returned suspected fugitives, they earned $10
• In September 1850, the same month the law was passed, federal marshals arrested African American James Hamlet and returned him to a slaveholder in Maryland, even though he had lived in New York City for 3 years
• Thousands of northern African Americans fled to Canada. In the 10 years after Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, 343 fugitive slave cases were reviewed, but in only 11 cases were the fugitives were declared free
• Northerners were upset with the commissioners' power, the idea of a trial without a jury, and commissioners' higher fees for returning slaves
• In 1854, Anthony Burns was arrested in Boston. Abolitionists tried to rescue him from jail using force, but a federal ship was ordered to return him to Virginia, which outraged many northerners and persuaded many to join the abolitionists
• Anthony Burns- A fugitive slave from Virginia, arrested in Boston

Antislavery Literature

• Abolitionists in the North used slave narratives of slaves like James Hamlet and Anthony Burns to gain sympathy for their cause and educate people about slaves' hardships
• Fiction like Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stow, was used to inform people about the evils of slavery
• Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852. The main character, an enslaved African American named Tom, is sold in Louisiana to Simon Legree, who has Tom beaten to death
• The novel sparked outrage in the South, and Louisa McCord, a famous southern writer, questioned the "foul imagination which could invent such scenes."
• More than 2 million copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin were sold in the U.S. within a decade. Stowe later wrote A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin to answer those who had criticized her book
• The impact of Stowe's book is suggested by her reported meeting with Abraham Lincoln in 1862, and her book is still widely read today as a source of information about the harsh realities of slavery
• Uncle Tom's Cabin- The anti-slavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Harriet Beecher Stowe- Daughter of Connecticut minister Lyman Beecher, moved to Ohio when she was 21. She met fugitive slaves and learned about the cruelties of slavery, and the Fugitive Slave Act greatly angered her. She wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin to educate northerners about the realities of slavery

Issues With Millie

Religion:
P5
Food:
P
Living Condition:
P3
Life Style:
P4
P6
Duties:
P12
Jobs:
P7
Clothing:
P9
Crops:
P10
P11

Quote Reaction

To Be A Slave Quotes
Section: Resistance to Slavery 3

pg. 145 Freedom turned into another kind of slavery, for many slaves were forced to return to their former plantations and ask ‘ol’ mass” for a job.  The former slave owners were happy, of course, to see the ex-slaves return, for the fields needed plowing and the crops planting.  Instead of paying the ex-slaves wages, however, the former slave owners let them work on “shares.”

There wasn't really any "freedom" for the African American slaves, even after the proclamation. The former slave owners found a loophole and used the problems of the free African American slaves to their advantage, and essentially turned them into their slaves again. It was actually even more humiliating because they were freed, but they were still working as slaves. Additionally, the slaves did not have any hope of getting out of their situation because they were already free, but they were broke, homeless, etc.