ipl-logo

Slavery: The American Revolution

1911 Words8 Pages

The American Revolution was a time of great social, political, and economic changes. Influenced by Enlightenment ideals, the American Revolution sang promises of independence, freedom, and liberty, all of which are fundamental components of the foundation of American identity. During the Revolution, many blacks, as both freedmen and slaves, fought alongside many of the colonists and loyalists, fighting on both sides of the war for much of the same values. However, while examining this time period, it is important to acknowledge the inescapable paradox that stains our country’s history: how does a society so motivated by liberty and freedom allow an institution like slavery to exist? Despite the rhetoric of the Revolution, many Americans continued …show more content…

One such soldier was Thomas Peters. Peters was a slave who was captured in 1760 from what is now known as present day Nigeria. The royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, declared a proclamation in November 1775 that issued freedom to any American slave or indentured servant who was willing to escape and fight for the British. Considering this, the American revolution could be referred to as the first large scale slave rebellion in North America. For every one black man fighting for the colonists, there were 20 on the opposite side, fighting for the British (Nash 20). Despite fighting on different sides, Hull and Peters shared the same goal: to attain freedom and …show more content…

Robert Beverly wrote privately that he believed slavery to be “something so contradictory to human nature,” and he confesses he is “ashamed of my Country whenever I consider of it” (Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of the Revolution 169). There was also a governor, named Francis Fauquier, who had expressed his doubts in slavery. In his will, he wrote about his fear of his slaves condemning him on the Day of Judgement: “For with what face can I expect mercy from an offended God, if I have not myself shewn mercy to these dependant on me” (Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of the Revolution 169). A physician and reformer named Benjamin Rush from 1760s conceded that “It would be useless for us to denounce the servitude to which the Parliament of Great Britain wishes to reduce us, while we continue to keep our fellow creatures in slavery just because their color is different from ours” (Davis Inhuman Bondage

Show More
Related

  • The Role Of Slavery In Colonial America

    325 Words  | 2 Pages

    Question 2: Slavery Slavery is a very controversial and hurtful topic for many reasons. It is known to be around since before Colonial America became a slave holding society. Did slavery start in America? Had it already begun somewhere else? Why would anyone need slaves?

    Read More

  • The Revolutionary Era Crossroads Of Freedom Chapter Summaries

    1226 Words  | 5 Pages

    Chapter 5 “The Revolutionary Era: Crossroads of Freedom,” This chapter focuses on Revolutionary era and the war between Britain and the colonies. It shed light on the lives of the African Americans during the war and the decisions they made to fight with or against the colonies they were enslaved in. The first important topic is about Thomas Peters fight to get his freedom.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Benjamin Banneker

    424 Words  | 2 Pages

    Because Jefferson personally overcame Britain’s deprivation of human rights, he can have empathy for slaves suffering a lack of the same freedoms. This significant comparison shows Jefferson how selfish he appeared by fighting for the freedom of America’s inhabitants and stopping once his rights were satisfied, neglecting other people who were entitled to those

    Read More

  • George Washington In Henry Wiencek's An Imperfect God

    1241 Words  | 5 Pages

    Washington was joined by slaves while leading the Continental Army in the field of battle, as well as during his time as president. Yet Wiencek also argues that the Revolution and the establishment of the new democracy changed Washington’s beliefs on slavery. By the end of his life, Washington had changed completely and “sickened by slavery, willing to sacrifice his own substance to end it.” (Wiencek 274) Many of the founding fathers recognized the problems created by slavery.

    Read More

  • Slavery In The 17th And 18th-Century

    327 Words  | 2 Pages

    The New York Historical Society (n.d.) states, “historically New York has been considered the capital of American liberty, hosting monuments devoted to freedom and promoting economic ambition as well as diversity; however, it is also, paradoxically, the capital of American slavery.” Slavery in New York started in the 1600s when the Dutch West India Company brought African slaves to what is today New York (GSA, n.d.). During the 17th and 18th-century, slavery was considered an investment and according to the New York Historical Society (n.d.), “almost every businessman in the 18th-century had a stake in the traffic of human beings.” Slaves improved the economy, they produced sugar, tobacco, indigo, coffee, chocolate, and cotton, which permitted

    Read More

  • Slavery From 1776 To 1852 Dbq Essay

    766 Words  | 4 Pages

    From 1776 to 1852 slavery was growing in the United States, as certain events happened opposition grew from those who were not slaves. The underlying reasons came from the North who never endorsed this idea of slavery anyways, from Southerners who began to see the injustice slaves were suffering from, and multiple events which came about periodically starting the route to freedom. These events such as the three fifths compromise and the Declaration of Independence started opening the eyes of those who did not see the benefit of slavery. Northern people never endorsed slaves from the beginning because they were more industrial based rather than farm based. Document H is from a speech in Congress in 1847.

    Read More

  • Slavery In Joseph J. Ellis's Founding Brothers

    946 Words  | 4 Pages

    Never directly mentioned in the Constitution, and commonly refereed to as “others”, African Americans were often denied existence in the Constitutional Conventions. James Madison embodied the complacency of the average white American man. Ellis describes his thinking as “a kind of mysterious region where ideas entered going in one direction but then emerged headed the opposite way.” (114). The Southern founding fathers, Madison included, acknowledged the moral evils of the slave trade but many of them slave owners themselves, did not desire an end to it, admittedly for their own profit.

    Read More

  • Revolutionary War Dbq

    115 Words  | 1 Pages

    Although thousands of African Americans fought for freedom in the war. Many thousands were still enslaved when the war was over. Many planters freed slaves who agreed to fight the British, and General George Washington permitted them to join the Continental Army. He urged their participation in all phases of the war. Even if local militia leaders objected.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Douglass And Mary Rowlandsson

    1157 Words  | 5 Pages

    Fredric Douglass wrote, “What to the Slave is Fourth of July” in 1852. In this speech to the American public, Douglass states how great of a country American “was” and how great the forefathers “were”. In contrast to those statements he professes his reasoning for freeing slaves. However, Mary Rowlandson wrote, “A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” in 1682. This captive narrative takes place during the King Philips war, and depicts how the native Americans treated their prisoners of war.

    Read More

  • Slavery In African American History

    1049 Words  | 5 Pages

    Slavery Slavery has proved itself to be one of the most gruesome and unnerving events in the history of the planet, on par with the Holocaust. Due to this issue, many men, women, and children have fought and are still fighting for their basic human rights and yearn to be equal due to this incident in our history. With this in mind, slavery, a horrific event which started in the early 1600’s, was perpetrated against African natives and both its influence and importance has spread into the current day. Although slavery is banned today in America, it still goes on today. Slavery, of course, has been around since BC/AD times but it wasn't until “1619 in Jamestown, Virginia that 20 captive African natives were sold into slavery in the Americas”(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/timeline/1619.html).

    Read More

  • Slavery And The Slave Trade In The English Colonies

    211 Words  | 1 Pages

    Specific characteristics of slavery and the slave trade in the English colonies were that plantation agriculture demanded a large labor pool, increasing slavery, and that the slaves specifically working on plantations in the Southern colonies and Caribbean were treated especially harshly. Large plantations located in the Southern colonies were focused primarily on tobacco because of the climate and large economic demand. The slaves that worked on these plantations were treated terribly because the plantation owners only cared about their crops and money; however, the slaves in the Caribbean were treated worse. Here, the plantations focused primarily on sugar cane because of the climate and large economic demand, and slavery was seen as especially

    Read More

  • William Lloyd Garrison Rhetorical Analysis

    1365 Words  | 6 Pages

    William Lloyd Garrison was a white abolitionist in colonial America, and whose most well known exploit was running the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. He was also one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Though Garrison’s abolitionist efforts were certainly admirable and impactful, much of the logic and rationale that he used when appealing to the white public for emancipation used the same racist beliefs about enslaved black people that led to their enslavement in the first place. Because of his arguments’ foundation in the basic racist belief in black inferiority, Garrison’s appeals for emancipation and his methods for inspiring the white public to abolitionism were unattractive to black abolitionists, and as a consequence,

    Read More

  • The Revolutionary War: Slavery In The United States

    264 Words  | 2 Pages

    The American Revolution brought independence to slaves, colonists, Native Americans, and women. The Revolutionary War made the United States and France allies go against Great Britain. France made a choice to assist the United States military until they received independence from Great Britain. The Revolution had a huge part in slavery, such as bringing conflict between slavery and liberty because the North prohibited slavery. The South did not believe that slavery should be abolished.

    Read More

  • Meaning Of The July Fourth For The Negro By Frederick Douglass

    1110 Words  | 5 Pages

    One of the strategies Douglass uses to convince his audience slavery should be abolished is by “calling out American hypocrisy in his Fourth of July oration” (Mercieca 1). He shames them with no remorse. He speaks on the opposite treatments that enable whites to live in a state of freedom and liberty, while the blacks are living in a state of bondage. As the audience listens, he reminds them, there are men, women and children still held hostages to the chains of

    Read More

  • Summary Of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

    869 Words  | 4 Pages

    On September 2nd, 1862, Abraham Lincoln famously signed the Emancipation Proclamation. After that, there’s been much debate on whether Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation truly played a role in freeing the slaves with many arguments opposing or favoring this issue. In Vincent Harding’s essay, The Blood-red Ironies of God, Harding argues in his thesis that Lincoln did not help to emancipate the slaves but that rather the slaves “self-emancipated” themselves through the war. On the opposition, Allen C Guelzo ’s essay, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, argues in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation and Guelzo acknowledges Lincoln for the abolishment of slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation.

    Read More

More about Slavery: The American Revolution

Open Document