Frontier Factors That Affected The Role And Status Of African Americans In Tennessee

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African American slavery took place starting in the mid-1600s when Tennessee was just starting to become a state. Tennessee officially became a state on June 1, 1796. It was a very hard time to live as a colored human being throughout the years until the abolishment of slavery in 1865 going by the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. For more than thirty years, frontier factors have affected the lives of African American people in Tennessee. In Nashville Tennessee, there were a lot of black slaves living under the control of white slave masters. Slaves were mostly found on cash crop farms, and they produced all the food being grown in the Civil War time era. Slaves were innocent people who were forced to do labor work and had no rights at all. Slavery in Tennessee was at its peak during the Civil War time frame era. Living as a black slave was extremely tough and it was even harder for slaves to escape their owners because they were afraid they would get killed. In 1860, the population of Tennessee was 1,109,801 and among that population, two hundred and seventy-five thousand …show more content…

The Indian fighting frontier was the longest in Davidson County’s history and this impacted the population. In the next fifteen years, the total population grew from three thousand six hundred and thirteen to fifteen thousand six hundred and eight. The slave population grew from nine hundred and ninety two to six thousand three hundred and five, which is extreme. The boundaries of black existence continued to be determined by masters. “Frontier society was almost by definition individualistic, lacking in community agencies: a fixed leadership, churches, schools, and police”. “The very lack of institutional apparatus made for paradox in the relationships of blacks and whites; slavery was at once more intimate and more commercial” (Goodstein