Civil War Dbq

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The American Civil War which is better known in America as Civil War was a war fought between 1861 and 1865. The main aim of the war was to determine whether the unions and the independence of the Confederations would survive. The war marks the central event in the history of the United States of America. The war was also important because it shaped and determined how the current America would come to be. After the revolution occurred, it left two unresolved questions which were later resolved by the Civil War. The questions that were left unresolved were: whether America was to become a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or whether it will end up becoming an indivisible country with sovereign government. This is the reason the Civil …show more content…

When the Northern Region of America was colonized by the Europeans, there was much idle and fertile land which ha d to be put into good use. However, there was shortage of cheap labor. Thus, cheap men and women were required to work on the plantations. Enslaving white slaves was not the solution because the whites were deemed unfit and lazy to deliver better outcomes like the strong African men. This led to the wake of slave-trade where explorers would import slaves from Africa and sell them in America. Slavery was the biggest trade in America at the time. This is because black slaves were expensive and they were still required. The form of slavery in America was more of a developing capitalist than the normal slavery of antiquity. The slaves were meant to improve the economy of America by ensuring mass production of farm produce and industrial products. Slavery in America was also characterized by archaic labor systems which were combined with the capitalist drive of the American society. This combination helped to define the chattel slavery in the United States. Despite the cheap labor provided by the African slaves they were still being mistreated. Racial segregation and prejudice existed at the time and Africans were segregated from the rest of the community. They were mistreated and made to do hard labor with little pay or none at all. The slaves began to defy the white’s rules and hard labor (Davidson, 56). Their resistant through unions and confederation is believed to be the reason behind the Civil