The beginning of the Civil War can be taken back all the way to 1619 when English settlers first brought African Americans over to the states. When they were first sold to settlers, they were not slaves, but indentured servants, but it wasn’t long before the indentured were treated as slaves. In 1641, Massachusetts becomes the first colony to legalize slavery, followed by Maryland who recognized slavery for life except for those who converted to Christianity, which Virginia shortly revoked this law. In 1688, the first protest against slavery was brought about by Quakers who claimed slavery was not Christian like. In 1777, a year after the colonies declared independence, Vermont became the first state to abolish slavery followed by Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. In 1787, congress passed the Three-Fifths Clause which allows each slave to count as Three-Fifths of a person. Also in 1787, the Norwest Ordinance was passed, which prevented slavery from existing in the new territories. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed along with the Compromise of 1850. The Fugitive Slave Act fined federal officials who didn’t arrest runaway slaves. This caused abolitionist to increase their efforts to end slavery and also increased the …show more content…
They thought their culture would be a great advantage. First, the south had hunted for their own food. This meant that they were able to “live off the land”. And also the hunting in their past had given them practice with a gun where Northerners had never seen a gun, let alone shot one. They also believed fighting on their own land was an advantage. Since they were fighting on their own land, they were familiar with the territory. And the final advantage the south believed they had was cotton. They had the best land in the U.S for growing cotton. This helped them because Europe relied on the U.S for their cotton, so the south could sell their cotton to Europe and use that money towards the