Early Republic

4 million total US population in 1790 census
- 18% were enslaved (majority of population in VA and SC)
- diverse origins and experiences
60,000 were free black people
abolition movement emerging, but slavery remained a nation-wide institution
ideas of race continue to harden
- increasingly wide spread in print
- new pseudo-scientific explanations

northern states pass gradual abolition, 1777-1804
- most commonly, “free womb laws”
- children born to enslaved mothers were free
- often indentured servants until early adulthood
- some people remained enslaved in the north until after the civil war
free black population grew to 186,000+ by 1820
- politically active, pressing for civil rights and abolition
at federal level, 1787 northwest ordinances
- banned slavery in territories north of the Ohio river
- prevented slavery from spreading to the northwest
in the south, slavery grew and transformed
- cotton plantations tied to industrial textile
- spread across new southwestern states, 1800-1860