Slavery in the USA

Caylee: Life as a Slave in NCAndrea: Struggle for FreedomVallerie: Resistance to Slavery

Kari: Coming to America

Coming to America Kari

• The journey from Africa to America was called “the middle passage”. It was the middle leg of the triangular slave trade which began and ended in Europe. (Discovery Education)

• The Africans never deserved or expected the horror and misery it held.

• The slavers packed 300 to 400 africans into one cargo ship.

Coming to America• The cargo ships were

very tiny a person could not even stand up in it.

• The air in the cargo was very hot and stale and smelled of sweaty bodies and human waste.

• There was s many people at a time in the boat that they couldn’t even turn around they about suffocated.

• Disease and death were common, almost 25% of the Africans died on the voyage. • 2010 Blackamericans.com

Life as a slave NCCaylee Davis

• By the 19th century slavery was a foundation of North Carolina’s economy and society.

• 1/3 of North Carolinians were enslaved during this time.

• The Fugitive Act of 1850 required all citizens to help catch runaway prisoner and slaves or they would be fined or imprisoned.

• There would be signs all over towns about wanted missing slaves and there would usually be a cash reward.

• Slaves lived in little houses with no floors just the dirt. It was always either cold or hot in the homes.

Slaves Working. Picking Cotton.Copyright © 2003-2008 Son of the South.

(Learn NC)

Life as a slave in NCCaylee Davis

• The Majority of slave owners owned less than ten slaves.

• In 1860 28% of the white population owned slaves.

• Slaves did work such as gardening and wood splitting.

• By 1860 there were a couple of classes.

• The Gentry- consisted of owners of large groups of Slaves. Twenty or more.

• The Middle Class-Made up of small merchants and manufactures with small incomes and very few slaves.

• The remainder of the white population, sometimes classified together as common whites, made up the third and fourth social classes.

(Learn NC)

Resistance to slavery

• Records show that these savvy men and woman and their descendants in the colonies often use the court system to make appeals regarding the conditions of their enslavement.

• Taking their cases before judges and juries, blacks of the early colonial period were awarded back wages from their employees, secured, privileges, inheritances, for their children and were able to argue in a legitimate court of law for their freedom

Resistance to slavery

• Many slaves escaped from sexual abuse by a white owner or over seer.

• Some found it easier to obey their masters.• Others trued to improve their conditions

withn the bounds of slavery, working to become over seers and managers there by gaining a kind of power.

• Some slaves pretended to be ill so they could work less.

Struggle for Freedom

• In 1833 the Northern states established an anti-slavery society.

• The anti-slavery society was to see the abolition of slavery any where in the U.S.

• The slaves and other free man formed the underground railroad, to free and get the slaves to the North.

• The slaves would travel on back roads and stay in safe homes. They would know which houses where safe by a light in the window would stay on at all times.

WGBH | PBS Online | ©

Struggle for Freedom

• The slaves would travel on back roads and stay in safe homes. They would know which houses where safe by a light in the window would stay on at all times.

• Latter we had the Civil War in 1861-1877. The North was fighting against slavery. The South was fighting for slavery.

• 1877 was the beginning of non-slavery.

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