slavery

essay documents

John C. Calhoun, Speech on Abolitionist Petitions (1837)

• was against abolition groups and movements

• claimed congress had no right/authority to discuss slavery

• defended slavery as a “net positive”

• essential to southern society and social stability

“I hold that… the relation now existing within the slaveholding states between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good - a positive good.”

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)

• states the civil war as a struggle to preserve the union and fulfill the nation’s promise of equality

• honors fallen soldiers

• calls to Americans to ensure the nation experiences “a new birth of freedom”

• linked the war as a sacrifice to ending slavery

“A new birth of freedom”

Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address (1865)

• States that the civil war was a conflict cause by slavery

• wants this to be a lesson for Americans

• wants Americans to unify, and respond with humility, moral reflection, and reconciliation

• justice instead of vengeance

• Lincoln looks to reconstruction with compassion, wanting unity and equality.

Charlotte Forten, Teaching Freed Children (1864)

• described her time teaching formerly enslaved children in south carolina during the civil war

• sees their intense eagerness to learn

• doesnt support americans hypocrisy about slaves being educationally inferior to white people, when slaves werent allowed any opportunities to learn

David Walker, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829)

• does not support slavery

• sees it as a brutal contradiction of the nations claims of christianity and liberty

• argues that black americans have been degraded far worse than enslaved people in history

• says black americans have just as much rights even more than white people because america was built on their labor

• walker warns that god’s justice will ultimately bring punishment upon a nation that continues to uphold slavery

“America is more our country than it is the whites - we have enriched it with our blood and tears”

Jourdon Anderson, Letter to His Former Master (1865)

• writes back to his former master

• asserts his freedom

• demands wages for years of his unpaid work

• refuses to return to the plantation

• exposes violence, and economic exploitation of slavery

• redefines freedom as dignity safety and fair compensation

Frederick Douglass, Remembering the Civil War (1877)

• argues that Americans cant forget that the civil war was a fight about slavery vs. freedom

• wars purpose is essential for achieving justice

• peace without liberty, law, and equality betrays the sacrifices made during the war

General J. J. Reynolds, Lawlessness in Texas (1868)

• widespread lawlessness

• cops are corrupt

• racial violence in texas during reconstruction

• emphasizes the power of the kkk

• freedpeople and union supporters were constantly murdered and robbed

• officials often ignored the violence

• reynolds argues that only sustained federal military intervention could protect formerly enslaved people and restore basic law and order

Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Account of North America (1542)

• traveled among native american groups in north america

• where he and his companions survived by integrating into indigenous communities and ways

• portrays them as deeply spiritual, and receptive

Bartolomé Las Casas

• condemns the brutal expolitation of indigenous people

• by spanish colonizers

• argues native people are peaceful and capable of christianity and morality

• yet were still enslaved, murdered, displaced solely due to spanish greed for gold

• presents the spanish’s actions as religious failure

• native americans were near total depopulation

John Winthrop

• city on a hill

• must worship god

• argues that social inequality is apart of gods plan

• Massachusetts colonists must live in a covenant of god

• role model

• pedestal

• their success and failure will be see by all

• wealthy support the poor

• mutual responsibility

• must worship god

Olaudah

• vividly describes the horrific conditions of the middle passage

• overcrowding, disease, hunger, brutality suffered by enslaved africans during the voyage

• portrays trade are inhumane, driven by greed

• exposes the cruelty, and brutality

• supports abolitionists views and causes

Eliza Lucas

• revealing the growing commercial economy

• describes the life in south carolina

• the responsibilities of managing multiple plantations

• during her fathers absence

• oversees trade, finances, crops

• shows the connections between agriculture, transatlantic trade, and wealth in colonial south

Patrick Henry = give me liberty or give me death

• argues that british actions have left the american colonies no choice but tot armed resistance

• frames the conflict between liberty and slavery

• submission to britain would mean the loss of freedom

• his argument is what push virginia toward supporting the revolutionary war

Crèvecoeur

• french

• describes america as the land of oppurtunity

• social equality, land ownership, hard work allow immigrants become independent citizens

• contrast to european rigid class system

• america = equality & freedom

• passage (writing) presents america as a new person shaped by liberty, industry, and oppurtunity

“Here man is free, as he ought to be.”

Black Philadelphians 1838

• protest

• decision to stop black voting men voting rights

• argues that they are citizens that have the right to vote

• “no taxation without representation”

• emphasize their contributions to the state

• tax payments, property ownership, churches, schools, society, moral life

• they deserve equal political rights that are equal with all other citizens

William Lloyd Garrison

• the liberator

• declares commitment to the abolitionist cause of not supporting slavery

• slavery is moral evil

“I will be as harsh as the truth, and as uncompromising as justice… AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

Anthony Burns

• letter

• responds to his excommunication from the church

• uncompromising commitment to abolishing slavery

• slavery violates god’s law

• he had a moral right and biblical right to seek freedom

• church leaders twister christianity to defend oppression

• a true christian supports liberty, justice, and human dignity, not bondage

“God made me man - not slave.”

Thomas Paine

• common sense

• Wanted complete independence from britain

• Wrote to the public to persaude people

• Self governance

• Eqauilty

• Individual rights

• Boost morale and recruit for the military

Declaration of independence

purpose, to explain the colonists' right to revolution. In other words, “to declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” Congress had to prove the legitimacy of its cause. It had just defied the most powerful nation on Earth

Dorothea dix

Faught for better trestmnent of the mentally ill

Mainfest destiny

John osullivan

Convince more americans to expand and come to america

Move more westwars

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New economic oppurtunities

Anne hucthinson

Worshipped good

Against john winthrop

Midwife

Was excommunicated

Held sermons first with women then men started to join in

Anne bradstreet

Puritan women who became the first women poet

Challenged the norms of male dominated roles

Spoke about the challenges of survival and colonial life

Sarah Grimke

Priveleged southern women

Spoke out against skavery and inequalities

Advocated for womens rights

Didnt like gender normative roles and disrepect

Grew up in slave owning family

Passed her beliefs onto her sister angelina (immediate emancipation and womens rights, and antislavery advocate)