American slaves were treated horribly. It was called the “Peculiar Institution” because it was a strange system. After a while, the South started to rely on slavery since it was agricultural. The North relied on the cotton from the South to ship to other countries. Once the cotton gin came to the South, they needed more slaves because they were producing more cotton. Plantation became the goal in the South and Abolitionists made the Southerners keep a tighter hold on their slaves. The United States was one of the last places to stop slavery and still keeps the ideas of white supremacy today. For example, in The Growth of The American Republic by Samuel Eliot Morrison and Henry Steele Commager, a textbook used from the 1930’s to the 1960’s _ …show more content…
The slaves are trying to sabotage their slave owners in any way that they can. They did resistance in a way that they would not be punished, if they resisted more aggressively they would have been punished and not able to resist more. They resisted in small ways so they could resist more. If they were devoted to their slave owners, they would not have not resisted.
If slaves were devoted to their ‘white folks’ slaves would not assault their ‘white folks’. Slaves resisted in various ways, some ways were aggressive and some ways were passive.
The first big slave revolt was planned by a person who was currently a slave and carried out by current slaves. There were 200-500 slaves involved in his plan. No one betrayed him; the militia was alerted by white people who escaped.
One reason Samuel Eliot Morrison and Henry Steele Commager thought slaves were happy was because they sang. The slaves singing was interpreted as the slaves being content with their conditions, but the true meaning of the singing was that they were unhappy. The song “Roll Jordan, roll” by Charles Wesley, is a secret code for escape and rebellion. Going down a river means the Mississippi or Ohio rivers to go North where the slaves could be free. The slaves want to live instead of surviving. The freedom can also be interpreted as dying instead of