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This article is choppy and in some respects misleading. The coverage of various historical periods seems uneven. On the whole, the "Slavery in colonial America" article strikes me as much better than the colonial section here. Perhaps the article needs more links to more specific treatments of slavery in specific times and places?
This is a glittering generalization: "it wouldn't be until the Slave Codes of 1705 that the status of African Americans would be sealed." -- In fact, each colony passed its slave code in a different year, and many of the New England colonies never passed them at all, leaving slavery to be handled by the courts on a common law rather than a statutory basis.
The bibliogaphy is daunting. Perhaps it can be winnowed and/or divided into subsections by topic and time period.
Drfryer 02:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Slavery could, infact, be slavery if it were willing. The definition in the initial sentence states "against their will."
Instead of saying not-so-kind slave owners, how about cruel slave owners?
The idea that slavery ended with the 13th amendment in the United States is a fallacy that should be addressed. Legal slavery ended at this time, but indentured servitude and slavery continues, especially in the garment and agricultural industries, often involving undocumented residents.
http://www.spectrezine.org/resist/FloridaLeft.htm http://www.ciw-online.org
These conditions are not 'approaching slavery' or 'approximating slavery' but are defined by the US government as slavery, as much so today as in the past. To deny this contemporary struggle against slavery in the united states is historically inaccurate and should be addressed.
This is a sadly poor article given the amount of great analysis we have by historians about slavery (Ira Berlin, Leon Litwack, Eugene Genovese, George Rawick, etc.). Particularly poor is the cursory "treatment of slaves" section. Do we have a grad student or somebody who can write this up a little better? This seems like one of the articles in which wikipedia's quality lags much more behind professional quality than usual, on an extremely important topic. Why is this not part of one of the wikiprojects? IceJew 10:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I more than agree, I think this is one of Wikipedia's poorest articles.I can't pinpoint any one thing, but the tone of this article is horribly detatched and cold. I understand the 'neutrality' aspect of Wikipedia, but this garble 'white-washes' and 'glosses' over slavery. It is almost entirely from the perspective of slave owners and northern aristocrats. There is not one single quote from a person actually held in slavery! This article presents a lot of death numbers, but fails to illustrate the true torture of the institution to any real degree. More over it seems to make more point of the economic 'pros', seemingly because it is shockingly against popular perception. While these 'pros' make be factual, they are imbalaced in the article. Aside from that I actually searching for Slave Market. This article failed my search-A Slave Market, the place, should probably have it's own page. Guillotine and Death Penalty aren't on the same page?
I would be too ashamed to contribute to this article, seriously, I wouldn't even know where to begin. This article is an amazing example of how a conglomeration of academic tidbits and cold statistics can make the institution of slavery look historically rational and religiously sanctified. Where is the opposition? Where is the Balance? and MOST IMPORTANTLY: WHERE IS THE TESTIMONY FROM SLAVES THEMSELVES!!!
This article also completely fails to address the continued effects of slavery in this country. I'm really ashamed of Wikipedia right now--Pyrzqxgl 03:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Was Anothony Johnson the same black slave from the first 20 in america who later gained freedom and bought his first 5 slaves and won a legal case to own a slave, making it legal to have one? Was he back or other race? YOou should detail this a little better, 'cause it implies a slave started legal slavery in America and that's brutal to black people thinking everything is the whites' fault, when they actually have some play on it. Your friendly neighbourhood (SpiderMan~~).
He was an indentured servant (which was commonplace for many whites at that time as well), who after finishing his contract, himself became a landholder and contract holder on other indentured servants (ie, he was a master). The 1662 case in Virginia was brought to court by him, and the ruling effectively made slavery legal in the colony. The other rulings thereafter further define slavery, but the 1662 decision is the most important because it allows indefinite indentured servitude(before a period usually lasting 4-7 years), makes provision so that children are either born into servitude or free based upon the legal status of the mother (whereas previously indentured servitude has been a contract signed between the servant and master), and makes the first specification of slavery based on race (in this case, the servant was a mulatto, not black). It is indeed a sad irony that the first legal slave holder in British colonial America was black, and that the first legal slave was not black, but a mulatto.
Hey spiderman, you sounded kind of racest there
I think the statement that slavery "ended with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863" is misleading. The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederacy. If the war would have ended before the 13th amendment, the Emancipation Proclamation would have been void. Lincoln could only legally issue an E.P. during wartime. Although the Emancipation was an important step, it did not end slavery. --137.151.174.178 18:58, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
"99% of the slaves had been emancipated" is blatantly false. Unoccupied Southern territories still had hundreds of thousands of slaves each. If you're referring to slaves in the Union territories, that may be true, but I'd definitely still like to see a source on it. In either case the Emancipation Proclamation was the death-blow to slavery but it did not end it immediately, and it was not until the end of the war that slavery was effectively gone, and not until the 13th amendment that it was irreversibly and universally gone. Saying slavery "ended with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863" is definitely a misleading statement 160.39.194.170 10:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I am concerned about the last revision of this article in which an editor removed detailed information and substituted other information without providing the source. Sources must be cited on these and all accompanying pages because there is a large difference of opinion on the slavery and Reconstruction pages, with some editors ignoring scholarship over the lat 50 years and in some cases, even the last 100 years. Skywriter 13:23, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
The central issue with this article is that it violates a central tenet of Wikipedia: verifiability.
Not one alleged fact in this article is sourced. As every historian knows, this is a serious problem. We don't know if sections have been plagiarized. We can't know whether to believe what's in this article because there are no citations at all. Sure there is a bibliography but especially because of its length, we can not know where each section originates. A lengthy bibliography does not substitute for sourcing within the article.
With regard to the last edit, we can't know whether what was written about Baptists was true or whether what was removed on that topic is true because neither was sourced. I believe we should begin flagging all related history pages that lack specific citations. Citing sources will be a service to readers, especially student readers who will know that we don't stand for sloppy research techniques. Wikipedia has standards. They are not being enforced here or on related pages. Skywriter 01:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Why is Wikipedia whitewashing American history? When it comes to articles on the Holocaust, Wikipedia delves into detail, carefully examining the death toll and offering up various statistics. But, unless I'm missing it, I don't see a single word in any of the articles on slavery in the U.S. that mentions anything at all about the horrific death toll caused by slavery in the New World. I don't have a citation for this, but I believe the figure is in the millions.
The above comment was added at 03:25, June 8, 2006 by 71.86.119.156.
You don't see much in the article about the death tool because the death toll in the United States was much lower than that in the rest of the New World. The slave population grew naturally, even much more rapidly than in Europe. If you were a black slave in the United States you were much more likely than a free European peasant to survive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.148.148.32 (talk • contribs) 02:39, August 3, 2007
Finding a scholarly way to highlight the death toll sounds like a good addition, but like many other numbers, estimates are all that we can have. Records were kept of slave transactions and deaths, but I wonder how many unnamed, undocumented slaves are in the ground throughout the US. Anyone claiming a close estimate should not be trusted. This is similar to rape statistics and other difficult numbers to quantify. The numbers are much worse than the best scholarly estimates can establish because there are many unknown victims.
Many states north of the Mason-Dixon had legal slavery, but they outlawed it prior to the passage of the 13th amendment. I think it would be good to have a list of each state and the date that slavery was outlawed. --Kalmia 08:50, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it would be useful. The "free state" article has a chart with some of the information.
this article is badly organized with material appearing in the wrong sections and with overlapping sections. It needs help. Thanks Hmains 18:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
history of slavery in the united states began shortly after "your mom was born"? really? can you get more insensitive and incorrect?! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 160.39.225.98 (talk • contribs) .
I'm in the process of looking in to this, but MUCH more research needs to be done about the VERY prominent role that these Charleston Jews played in the African slave trade, the slave trade which was overwhelmingly centered in the city of Charleston in North America (especially after The North became increasingly abolitionist-oriented) until about 1807, when the slave trade was outlawed (though it certainly continued, albeit quietly).
Also, South Carolina eventually had more African slaves living in the state than non-slaves (as Wikipedia says: "For most of its history, black slaves made up a majority of South Carolina's population.") and the slave owners constantly feared a large slave-uprising or insurrection; indeed, even in modern times African-Americans are about 1/3 the population of the state of South Carolina, possibly a bit more.
It seems that wherever there was a very early North or South American synagogue or large Jewish presence you also find a prominent slave market, both in North and South America (along with the Caribbean and North Africa). All evidence points to the fact that it was a very large role that Jews played -- not to mention the fact that many of these Sephardic Jews hailed from the Netherlands, and everyone knows that the Dutch played a huge part in the African slave trade (History of the Jews in the Netherlands), and that they had been recently expelled from Spain and Portugal (Alhambra decree), but the crypto-Jews remained -- Spain and Portugal were both THE dominant shipping powers around this time. The oldest synagogue in North or South America was established in 1636 (the Kahal Zur synagogue in the Dutch capital of Recife, Brazil). Eventually Brazil had more African slaves than any other place on Earth. There were also many Sephardic Jews living in North Africa (a traditional Sephardi area) which served as a jumping off point where the slaves were gathered (see Triangular trade) by both local Arabs and these Sephardi Jew collaborators and then shipped to North or South America.
There was also an amazingly large slave market in Newport, Rhode Island, which is the site of the oldest synagogue in North America (Touro Synagogue); check out these stats: "As early as 1708 African slaves outnumbered indentured servants in Rhode Island eight to one. In fact, between 1705 and 1805, Rhode Island merchants sponsored at least 1,000 slaving voyages to West Africa and carried over 100,000 slaves back to America. More slave ships would leave Colonial Newport than any other American port of that time. By 1770, one out of every three Newport families owned at least one slave" [1].
Does anyone have any reliable links or book recommendations so that we can write a section about this on the page? I've found many but am looking for more. Thank you. --Pseudothyrum 02:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
To be cherry-picking is not going to lead to a good article. Why is all the emphasis on exceptions or small numbers, rather than the main story? To say there was a big slave market in Newport, RI and there was a Jewish synagogue there, so they were responsible is not useful. Newport was a major port city with wealthy merchants and traders. That is the kind of place where markets would flourish and where there would be people with the money to buy slaves. All evidence does not point to the fact that where there was a Jewish population there was a slave trade. --Parkwells 01:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Slavery lasted so long but so little has been written about it on Wikipedia.
I think the Civil War antebellum period should be included in this article. From the browsing I've done at the library (yay, Community service), it should be noted that in many places Mulattoes were free and had near equal rights as whites and that slave status was at first determined upon the mother status, (be it white or black). Also, the transition of mulattoes being absorbed into slave status should be added as well. Shakam 07:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Slavery did not end after the emancipation proclamation. Which is why we have the celebration of Juneteenth. There should be mention of the determination to establish slavery in the central america, as well as south america on the part of the disgruntled confederates. snortney 16:04, 15 February
Snortney, the article is about Slavery in the United States. Attempts to establish slavery in Central and South America would not fit into the focus of this article, unless perhaps these efforts were accompanied by attempts to claim territory in Central and South America for the USA. Disgruntled Confederates would not have tried to annex territory for the USA; therefore, the info does not belong in this article, except for at most a one sentence passing mention, perhaps.John ISEM 07:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I second the comments about the Emancipation proclamation - in reality it freed very few, if any, slaves. By its terms, it only freed slaves who were held in territories "in rebellion". This excluded any states remaining in the Union, such as Maryland, which held some 87,000 slaves in 1861. It excluded border states such as Kentucky and Missouri. It excluded any territory occupied and controlled by Federal armies, which were occupied and no longer "in rebellion." Thus the only areas in which the Emancipation Proclamation purported to hold sway were territories in which the Federal government held no sway, and could not enforce the EP.
Mr. Lincoln was a consummate politician, and knew that it was critical to his re-election in 1864 to bring the northern abolitionists into the fold. Thus the EP was moreso a political document to place slavery, along with his originally-stated purpose for starting the War, preservation of the Union, at the front and center of Northern purposes in continuing to prosecute the War. Remember that it was prepared at a time the North was taking a beating in at least the eastern theater of the War, and that Lincoln waited for a "victory" in the field in the form of Sharpsburg (an equivocal victory at best) to issue the proclamation at a "positive" time in the War news.
KYHorseman 16:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)KYHorseman
Well, we serious editors can breathe a little easier for the next two weeks, free of the ongoing assault from anonymous vandals. I'm just sorry I waited so long to make the request! (Something tells me I'm gonna be requesting protection all over again after it expires...) Cgingold 15:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I read the article in J Negro History on slavery in California. It is about the debate in the state whether to allow slavery (the unanimous decision at the convention was no--and the Constitution of 1849 explictly banned any slavery), with only a short section dealing with involuntary servitude of Indians. Somehow none of that got in the section. 04:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
This article has nothing about current slavery in the United States, which is usualy in the form of children, whom are raised as full time maids or laborers, or women in the sex slave trade.-ChristopherMannMcKay 05:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be important to add the number of percentage of population that were in fact slave owners. It seems to me many young people today think most european descendants owned slaves when in fact this is untrue. A very small percentage of the population actually owned slaves but I have yet to see any statistics on this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.206.36.126 (talk) 05:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC).
Although they were a minority of the population, they were the wealthy class and had disproportionate political and social power throughout the colonial and antebellum periods. In some states there was a high percentage of whites owning slaves, even if most owned fewer than 10. It's not useful to rely on numbers or percentages of slaveholders as the most reliable indicator of the impact of slavery.
Because the Southern delegation got the Northern representatives to agree that slaves should be counted for Congressional representation (at 3/5 of the white population), the planter class's political power was magnified. Slaves couldn't vote, but the planters who held them got to use the advantage of their numbers in Southern states to gain more elected seats in Congress, and thus more political power on a national level.
It's misleading to write just about the percentage of slaveholders before the Civil War across the entire United States and suggest that slavery was therefore a small issue because not many whites in the entire country owned slaves.
Someone noted the Historical Census Browser at UVA as a tool. You can do an analysis on a state by state basis for 1860, for instance. --Parkwells 01:13, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
didn't see this covered in the article (no, this isn't about pimping)
http://archive.salon.com/books/it/2000/06/15/white_slaves/ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.254.20.162 (talk) 23:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC).
It should be noted that the following cites no direct sources but a single uncredited personal website (americancivilwar.com). The figures listed have no factual basis, and note that white-owned slaves are referred here as "indentured servants" while black-owned slaves are simply "slaves." The following should be deleted without notice as it is blatantly misguiding about the reality of slavery, wherein the vast majority of slaves were white-owned. Comment from 160.39.136.17 on the 24th April 2007 about the 'Black slave owners section (copied by Ctbolt 01:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC))
Black slave owners are an important aspect of U.S. slavery -- and U.S. abolition of slavery -- to understand. An early examination of this was Carter G. Woodson's 1924 book (later reprinted) FREE NEGRO OWNERS OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1830: TOGETHER WITH ABSENTEE OWNERSHIP OF SLAVES IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1830. He helped uncover the history of free African Americans buying enslaved relatives and others. There is literature to be used to make a valuable section of this entry and its own entry eventually. Before this book was published Woodson published his research in a journal and the complete text of that detailed article is available via the JStor archive: "Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830" by the Research Department of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, in The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Jan., 1924), pp. 41-85. Katewill 00:02, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
This article should also include coverage of slavery among American Indians. Slavery in North America did not begin with the arrival of Europeans. Various tribes kept slaves. In addition to forced labor and sexual exploitation, some tribes used slaves as human sacrifices in religious ceremonies. Slavery continued in the US as late as 1927 when the Bureau of Indian Affairs forced the Tlingit Indians of Alaska to free their Haida slaves. This aspect of slavery is completely overlooked here. Michaelcarraher 15:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)michaelcarraher
I haven't looked at this article in quite some time and in the interim, some distortions have magnified. Some folks are over emphasizing slave ownership by other blacks and/or by American Indians. Let's try not to get carried away with this, folks. While it occurred, it was for the most part anomalous. By singling out slave ownership by one black guy and a few Cherokees, this article makes it sound as though those two groups were the majority profiting from slave labor. There needs to be some balance here, some proportionality. Many of the Founders including Washington and Jefferson were slave owners and this article should reflect that. To try to palm slave ownership off on a few fellow blacks or Native Americans is simply dishonest. There's plenty of solid documentation and this article is way short on that.Skywriter 09:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Could you link to the exact pages with the stats you are citing?
When you say "About one quarter of families in the south owned slaves in 1860" -- do you mean one quarter of white families? The statement about Mississippi is similarly confusing. Thanks. Skywriter 08:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. The answer is in the 2006 edition of Historical Statistics of the United States published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press--all five volumes, 29 pounds, 1,900 tables, 37,000 annual time series covering comprehensive aspects of US demographic, economic, political and social history. The previous edition was published by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1975. In 1994, the government told scholars to produce it if the data is wanted. There were many contributors. New added topics are American Indians, slavery, outlying areas, environmental indicators, poverty, nonprofits and the Confederate States of America, along with lots of other data. With a subscription, all data series can be downloaded as Excel files and essays in Word from hsus.cambridge.org/HSUSWeb/HSUSEntryServlet. It also appears in shockingly expensive book version ($800) Many university libraries have subscriptions. I am without access at the moment or I'd provide the updated numbers. I did flip through the sections on slavery and Reconstruction, which are detailed and extensive.
My point about the previous emphasis, since deleted I believe, on anecdotes (x number of blacks and American Indians owned x number of slaves) is that it is imprecise, and fails to show the big picture. It is possible that those numbers from the original Excel file you cited came from the 1975 edition of HSUS but of course I can not know that. Skywriter 00:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Skywriter 00:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
In the section “Treatment of slaves” an editor has tried to resurrect the white supremacist justifications of slavery, that admittedly did dominate American historiography in the early 20th Century, and treat it as if it STILL represented a valid perspective held by historians today, claiming that “Treatment of slaves is a matter of dispute.” In particular the editor lists the opinions of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips and George T. Winston as if their writings on the myth of the happy slave were still considered a matter of current historical debate. Even worse, the editor leads off the section with these positions and fails to note any of the criticism of their work and its rejection by the current historical profession.
For a source the editor footnotes an URL leading to the first page of an article on JSTOR, “Slavery: The Progressive Institution?” by David and Temin. The article itself places the works of people like Phillips and Winston in their proper perspective. From the article:
Fogel and Engerman, as the article mentions, resurrect some aspects of Phillips et al. However the article criticizes both their methodology and their conclusions:
The un-nuanced, simplistic attempt by the editor to present the idea that some historians today think slavery was bad and some think it was good is inaccurate and POV to the extreme. Rather than trying to rehabilitate this section, I have included a separate historiography section towards the end of the article where Phillips et al are discussed AS THEY RELATE TO CURRENT HISTORIOGRAPHY. Tom (North Shoreman) 19:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The section about treatment of slaves relies on the 1967 work of Eugene Genovese as a source. Genovese was a staunch Marxist in the 1960s and nothing indicates that the Marxist views of slavery enjoy anything but fringe acceptance today. Genovese's method, historical materialism, has been discredited.
The article gives undue weight to Genovese's Marxist views. (WP:UNDUE)
For this reason Genovese's Marxist falsifications don't deserve to be included to this article. MoritzB 16:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
@ MoritzB:
This article is the main article for Category:History of slavery in the United States. PaulHanson has proposed that this category be renamed Category:Slavery in the United States. The discussion is located here.--HarryHenryGebel 13:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
2. The article from Southern History is based on outdated sources and historians whose reputations are considered mixed at best. Recommend use of more current research - much has been done on slavery in the last three decades. --Parkwells 01:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)--Parkwells 17:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Even though Fogel's book achieved much attention 30 years ago, historians do NOT agree with all his conclusions, nor with those of Ulrich Phillips. There has been so much research on slavery and how enslaved African Americans resisted and made lives under slavery; why insist on using earlier sources who are not considered part of the current historical consensus? It doesn't provide a more balanced viewpoint; it makes wikipedia look out of touch with generally accepted history.
African-American women themselves, both in contemporary accounts and accounts by former slaves in the 1930's under the WPA, attested to both the real and perceived threat of sexual abuse from white males. Travelers to Virginia as early as the 18th c. noticed all the light-skinned slaves and wrote about their seeing resemblances to the owners, as at Thomas Jefferson's famous table, for one.
Mary Chesnut and Fanny Kemble, wives of prominent planters in South Carolina and Georgia, attested in their published journals to the mixed-race children white men fathered by enslaved women and then ignored. Former slave men attested to the pain of not being able to protect their wives. The prominent historian Nell Irwin Painter's (2002) book of essays "Southern History Across the Color Line" addresses the effects of white men using slave women. This is not a matter of controversy still to be proved.
Whether Fogel thought it made "economic sense" or not is beside the point. Sexual abuse of slave women was part of the power politics. Also, more current economists are making headlines with published research about all the ways in which people don't make "good" economic decisions, because we are not overwhelmingly rational decisionmakers. --Parkwells 15:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I've nominated the very short article on Indian Slavery for the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive. The article covers two continents and some 420 years of history, but lacks basic organization and a lot of relevant information. It deserves to be brought up to the caliber of other articles on Slavery, Slavery in the United States, and so on. You can vote for it at the improvement drive page. --Carwil 14:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Why is this aspect of slavery in the United Stated ignored? Does it fall into the category of winners writing history? It seems as though we are doing a disservice both to the memory of those who were held as slaves in northern states, and to students in our educational systems when we fail to teach them about the complete history of the country. I came across this website on the subject, but have not had the chance to verify any of the information on the site. http://www.slavenorth.com/index.html
I can't believe the ignorance... the article mentions nowhere that the U.S. slave population is growing by as much as 50,000 persons a year—more than during the antebellum period. This doesn't even count the legalized forced labor camps in US territories like the Mariana islands. Most of these people, including children, are forced into sex slavery. 71.251.77.196 00:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
If you could find a reference for that fact, it could be added in. θnce θn this island Speak! 01:32, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Slavery in America today is everywhere: http://www.iabolish.org/slavery_today/usa/states.html Stars4change (talk) 17:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
"The history of slavery in the United States (1619-1865) ": When I read this, I did not bother reading further as I feel it is important to deal with this fundamental issue first. The United States did not exist for most of this period. Perhaps we could retitle the page Slavery in North America.Harrypotter 13:40, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
STATE | TOTAL POPULATION |
TOTAL NO. OF SLAVES |
NO. OF FAMILIES |
TOTAL FREE POPULATION |
TOTAL NO. OF SLAVEHOLDERS |
PERCENT OF FAMILIES OWNING SLAVES |
SLAVES AS PERCENT OF POPULATION |
group |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
MISSISSIPPI | 791,305 | 436,631 | 63,015 | 354,674 | 30,943 | 49% | 55% | CSA11 |
SOUTH CAROLINA | 703,708 | 402,406 | 58,642 | 301,302 | 26,701 | 46% | 57% | CSA11 |
GEORGIA | 1,057,286 | 462,198 | 109,919 | 595,088 | 41,084 | 37% | 44% | CSA11 |
ALABAMA | 964,201 | 435,080 | 96,603 | 529,121 | 33,730 | 35% | 45% | CSA11 |
FLORIDA | 140,424 | 61,745 | 15,090 | 78,679 | 5,152 | 34% | 44% | CSA11 |
LOUISIANA | 708,002 | 331,726 | 74,725 | 376,276 | 22,033 | 29% | 47% | CSA11 |
TEXAS | 604,215 | 182,566 | 76,781 | 421,649 | 21,878 | 28% | 30% | CSA11 |
NORTH CAROLINA | 992,622 | 331,059 | 125,090 | 661,563 | 34,658 | 28% | 33% | CSA11 |
VIRGINIA | 1,596,318 | 490,865 | 201,523 | 1,105,453 | 52,128 | 26% | 31% | CSA11 |
TENNESSEE | 1,109,801 | 275,719 | 149,335 | 834,082 | 36,844 | 25% | 25% | CSA11 |
ARKANSAS | 435,450 | 111,115 | 57,244 | 324,335 | 11,481 | 20% | 26% | CSA11 |
CSA11-total | 9,103,332 | 3,521,110 | 1,027,967 | 5,582,222 | 316,632 | 31% | 39% | CSA11-total |
KENTUCKY | 1,155,684 | 225,483 | 166,321 | 930,201 | 38,645 | 23% | 20% | CSA13/
border-slave |
MISSOURI | 1,182,012 | 114,931 | 192,073 | 1,067,081 | 24,320 | 13% | 10% | CSA13/
border-slave |
MARYLAND | 687,049 | 87,189 | 110,278 | 599,860 | 13,783 | 12% | 13% | border-slave |
DELAWARE | 112,216 | 1,798 | 18,966 | 110,418 | 587 | 3% | 2% | border-slave |
border state total |
3,136,961 | 429,401 | 487,638 | 2,707,560 | 77,335 | 16% | 14% | border-total |
slave state total |
12,240,293 | 3,950,511 | 1,515,605 | 8,289,782 | 393,967 | 26% | 32% | slave-state-
total |
CALIFORNIA | 379,985 | 0 | 98,767 | 379,994 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
CONNECTICUT | 460,138 | 0 | 94,831 | 460,147 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
ILLINOIS | 1,711,942 | 0 | 315,539 | 1,711,951 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
INDIANA | 1,350,419 | 0 | 248,664 | 1,350,428 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
IOWA | 674,904 | 0 | 124,098 | 674,913 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
KANSAS | 107,206 | 2 | 21,912 | 107,204 | 2 | 0% | 0% | territory |
MAINE | 628,270 | 0 | 120,863 | 628,279 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
MASSACHUSETTS | 1,231,057 | 0 | 251,287 | 1,231,066 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
MICHIGAN | 749,104 | 0 | 144,761 | 749,113 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
MINNESOTA | 172,014 | 0 | 37,319 | 172,023 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
NEBRASKA | 28,841 | 15 | 5,931 | 28,826 | 6 | 0% | 0% | territory |
NEVADA | 6,848 | 0 | 2,027 | 6,857 | 0 | 0% | 0% | territory |
NEW HAMPSHIRE | 326,064 | 0 | 69,018 | 326,073 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
NEW JERSEY | 672,035 | 0 | 130,348 | 672,017 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
NEW YORK | 3,880,726 | 0 | 758,420 | 3,880,735 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
OHIO | 2,339,502 | 0 | 434,134 | 2,339,511 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
OREGON | 52,456 | 0 | 11,063 | 52,465 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
PENNSYLVANIA | 2,906,206 | 0 | 524,558 | 2,906,215 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
RHODE ISLAND | 174,611 | 0 | 35,209 | 174,620 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
VERMONT | 315,089 | 0 | 63,781 | 315,098 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
WISCONSIN | 775,872 | 0 | 147,473 | 775,881 | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
Total | 31,183,582 | 3,950,528 | 5,155,608 | 27,233,198 | 393,975 | 8% | 13% |
Absolutely no mention.
I realize that slaves were black for the most part, but there were other races as well. I thought this was supposed to be non-discriminatory? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.52.206 (talk) 16:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
It is more helpful if people know something about Irish slavery in the United States that they add something, than merely the unsigned comment. Certainly Nicholas Ferrar emntioned something about the enslavement of poles by the officers of the London Virginia Company, which is mentioned on the Ferrar page. But for the reasons mentioned above I feekl uncomfortable about adding such information to this page.Harrypotter (talk) 19:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
If you are referring to the indentured servitude of immigrants from Europe in the U.S., feel free to add a section and source the info. Sf46 (talk) 21:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
This is a major issue. Why does it go unmentioned? Here are some links [[2]],
[[3]], [[4]] 69.29.64.83 (talk) 00:50, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
This section, the way it's currently written, makes it sound like other states have apologized for slavery, but I'm not aware of any others that have. If any other editors are aware of subsequent states that apologized for slavery, it would be nice if we could add this. Otherwise, we should rephrase this section so it's more clear. Natalie (talk) 01:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
There seems a vandalism here, why? When I edited a very notable ruling against very rich accused in favor of servants, this court ruling is very rare in Modern history of slavery. Now, an IP address anonymous user made a wrong edit, seemed to make Wiki not neutral. So,[5] -Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) m (102,787 bytes) (Reverted edits by 72.171.0.143 (talk) to last version by Florentino floro) (undo) - in the history, reverted to my edit. Now, Max editor, deleted my edits. I had to revert is lest the article be futher vandalized.--Florentino floro (talk) 08:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
From beginning to the end the Atalntic slave trade brought about the involuntary migration of about twelve million Africans to the western hemisphere. Another four million or more died resisting seizure or during captivity before arriving at their intended destination. Basicilly, the Atlantic slave trade alone deprived African societies of about sixteen million individuals, in addition to another sereval million consumed by the continuing Islamic slave trade. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.215.152.181 (talk) 04:07, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Beyond sharecropping there were in fact families sanctioned to own slaves. This was even in newsweek. Lets add it YVNP (talk) 06:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
i want to know when did the slaves to places in mississippi like florence, jackson, brandon, floria —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.228.244.55 (talk) 03:31, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
would be nice to know which specific african countries or cities were the black american slaves brought from originally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.7.96 (talk) 02:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
This article goes along with http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html in asserting the 1860 census produced a tally for the number of households owning slaves. (Table appears above.) In 1860 there was a separate schedule for slaves & slaveholders. Several people in one household could be listed, and then the number of slaves that each owned. The numbers at that site under the heading "Percent of Families Owning Slaves" presumes there is only 1 slaveholder per family (would count as "novel synthesis" [and unwarranted] around here). Taking this into account would reduce the % of households owning slaves - there is no data to determine by how much. This strikes at the reliability of the source -- and, as it stands, the claim should not be presented in the article --JimWae (talk) 21:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree there ought to be a section on slave breeding. In particular, there is a persistent myth that American slaveowners bred slaves to be stronger; this article would be a good place to discuss the topic. Tempshill (talk) 21:45, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
This article and Atlantic slave trade agree that around 5% of slaves brought from Africa to the western hemisphere went to the United States. But this article has a cited quote that claims the "overwhelming majority" of these slaves went to Brazil, while the Atlantic slave trade article says about 35% went to Brazil and about 22% to the Spanish Empire. I didn't want to just overwrite a cited quote, so I gave the "overwhelming majority" line a "dubious" tag just now. Tempshill (talk) 21:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I think this would be interesting to put in here. One place said 200$ for an adult and 20$ for a child, although I'm not sure if that's in todays money or whatever money was used in the 1600s or even if it's true at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.234.60.130 (talk) 23:56, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
[Slavery in the US] continues illegally to this day. Can we have a reference proof of that statement. I just find it hard to believe that there are slaves in the US in 2009. Even illegal ones. Zealander (talk) 03:38, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
There are--thousands of them. I added a link to the 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report by the State Department--it includes some discussion and examples of human trafficking in the United States. Several of the reports cited in the "Modern Day Slavery" section of this article also show evidence provided by major newspapers, and there is more information referenced if you follow the Human Trafficking link. Also, look up The Polaris Project for more information. TerryLeeWright (talk) 23:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
The reference in the intro should explain the context, or people will think slavery of African Americans as it was in the 19th century continues to this day. Maybe add "...to this day in the form of..." and explain more precisely in the intro.
Also, the claim that imprisonment is slavery (modern slavery, toward the end of the article) is an opinion, and it should be stated as such. Likewise, paying off debts as slavery should be stated as an opinion - granted, every definition has a degree of opinion, but it would be helpful to the article to note where there may not be a strong consensus on the issue. You could, for example, say that some lawsuits result in a kind of slavery, but the further you get from the traditional definition, the more you need to indicate that you've done so. 206.116.166.97 (talk) 20:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
The statement "It continues illegally to this day" falsely connotes the continuation of chattel slavery in the United States. This statement in the opening paragraph of the article, repeated in the 6th paragraph, is not neutral and gives the article a decided point of view in violation of Wikipedia's policies. Wikipedia's articles about the history of slavery in other countries which also face modern human trafficking problems equally or more severe than those of the United States according to the cited Trafficking in Persons report either have no mention of slavery "continuing to this day" or are given more favorable treatment. ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manorn wellrock (talk • contribs) 03:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
There is no question that there is a distinction between pre-civil-war era African-American chattel slavery and the kind of slavery we see today; I did not mean to imply otherwise, but they are both Slavery in the United States. That's a fact, unless we define slavery so narrowly that the government must sanction something for it to be slavery. It would be quite misleading to leave any mention of modern-day slavery out of the summary: it's verifiable, researched, and accepted among scholars, our institutions of government, and at times our media, that slavery exists in the United States today and that it has many victims. Regarding your points about comparable Wikipedia articles, firstly, that something may be overlooked on another page does not mean it should be overlooked here; secondly, what do you mean the articles are given more favorable treatment?TerryLeeWright (talk)
"Twelve million Africans were shipped to the Americas ... Of these, an estimated 645,000 (6.45% of the total) were brought to ... the United States."
These three numbers don't work together. If the total is 12 million, then 6.45% would be 774,000. If the number is 645,000 out of 12 million, then the percentage is 5.37%. If the later two figures are correct, then the total would be 10 million. 99.146.14.111 (talk) 00:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC) Jeffster83
What're "coffles"? I couldn't find this word in any dictionary. Thanks for your help, --87.78.59.219 (talk) 11:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
The article states that a Dutch ship was the first to trade slaves in the new world. "The White Lion"(ship) was in fact an English ship flying a dutch flag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.36.1.97 (talk) 18:47, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
The end of the second paragraph currently reads:
Religious differences contributed to this geographic disparity as well.also,this is because 1 and 1 equals 11 so black and black equals black.but,white plus white equals whitish brown becaus white people have frekles.
The latter part of this sentence looks like the result of garbled editing or perhaps vandalism. CharlesHBennett (talk) 21:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I would suggest doing it chronologically. This article is a very long! --Levineps (talk) 15:58, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
The claim in the introduction that the US was "the first Western country to have government sponsored abolition of slaves" as well as the last to free all its slaves does not appear to be correct. According to the wikipedia page on "abolitionism" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism Portugal was first in 1761, the second was the 1772 decision in England, the third was Scotland in 1776, while individual states within the US had abolition between 1777 and 1864. The article on the timetable of abolition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline has a slightly different order, with Portugal first in 1761, England second in 1772, Vermont third in 1777 and Scotland fourth in 1778. It could also be easily argued that England was first (1102, illegal within London), followed by Iceland (1117), Norway (1274) and Sweden (1335). Furthermore, Vermont didn't join the United States until 1791, so it is dubious to even use the 1777 date. Basically, I don't see how this statement can be considered to be factual by any set of criteria, so I removed it. 88.147.25.154 (talk) 08:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
why did people do that hanna —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.184.49.48 (talk) 14:04, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The idians were technically not US citisens, but I think this should be mentioned too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.94.143.249 (talk) 06:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
I have not read the article very carefully (reason: it's far too long and tedious) but I cannot find any explanation about where the slaves came from. I was always under the impression that Africans enslaved people from other tribes / villages etc and then sold them to European traders on the coast, and that most American slaves came from this route. This is potentially important - if correct - since it undermines the assumption that black people were only victims in the slave trade. Apologies if I have got that wrong. Mr Poechalkdust (talk) 13:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I've read James Michener's books (like Hawaii and Alaska and Centennial), and seen documentaries about Asian slavery in America on the west coast. They were brought here in the same way Africans were (forced to stay below decks in stench, etc), and I think something should be said about that. Stars4change (talk) 04:41, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Some info: http://www.asian-nation.org/first.shtml Stars4change (talk) 04:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
It's really not clear what this section is doing here. It should either be integrated into the article in a way that makes its relevance apparent, or it should be eliminated. Personally, I think it should be eliminated; for starters, this is an article about slavery in the United States, not North Africa or elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire.--142.1.133.232 (talk) 21:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I do not understand the references in the text. There are a number of references to Berlin, meaning Ira Berlin but it is unclear which quote or citation refers to which of his books as several are listed.
Here's one example. This article contains these words referenced to Berlin-- Between 1810 and 1830 the number of slaves increased from under 10,000 but it is not clear which of his books those words appear in. I went out on the Internets to try to find out and found that phrase copied 20 times, all tracing back to this article, even with the same quote marks, sometimes without even the reference to Berlin. In none of the 21 examples where this phrase appears is the book identified.
Can you/will you help straighten this out?
Thanks. Skywriter (talk) 23:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks much.Skywriter (talk) 01:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
In another article about Native American's it is discussed that at one time there may have been over 100 million Native American's here as well. It should be pointed out many of them were slaves as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.13.1 (talk) 14:02, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
An IP has several times added material regarding alleged post Civil War slavery. The gist of the argument is that blacks continued to be held in slavery for decades after the Civil War. in fact, there certainly were aspects of slavery in the sytemic denial of basic human rights to African Americans, but to call it literally actual slavery is nothing but a rhetorical flourish and a fringe version of history. The IP should discuss his/her purpose and what the source listed actually claims (no page numbers were offered) and secure consensus before adding some version of the material back. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 11:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Based on the above, I did some searching and found that there is actually an article on Convict lease which covers (or should cover) exactly what we are talking about. I added a brief subsection (under the already existing section "Reconstruction to present") in this slavery article that has brief summaries from Blackmon and Litwack and identifies where the main article is. If anyone wants to elaborate on the subject, they should probably do so in the main article (using much more NPOV language than employed by the IP in this article).
I also believe, if anyone is interested, that a brief statement such as the one I added here might be appropriate to the following articles:
Nadir of American race relations
Reconstruction era of the United States
Redemption (United States history)
African-American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954)
History of the Southern United States Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 01:32, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
You should be ashamed of yourselves whoever jammed all that crap in there. 71.186.135.89 (talk) 19:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
As this article http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-the-price-of-tomatoes demonstrates, there is in fact still agricultural slavery going on in the United States, specifically in the florida tomato industry. Undocumented laborers are brought in from Mexico with the promise of jobs and then imprisoned on private property and forced to work for essentially zero wages and threatened with death if they try to leave. If there are no objections I'll add a sentence to the article about it137.165.247.81 (talk) 07:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Historian Ira Berlin "begins with what he calls the 'charter generations.' These 17th-century black settlers entered areas like Dutch New Netherland, the English Chesapeake, French Louisiana or Spanish Florida with an indeterminate status that only gradually evolved into slavery. Their debasement was driven by the European demand for workers who could be used to exploit the economic opportunities offered by the New World." [1]
On the economic value of slaves, historian Eric Foner has written:
On the eve of the Civil War, the economic value of slaves in the United States was $3 billion in 1860 currency, more than the combined value of all the factories, railroads and banks in the country. Much of the North's economic prosperity derived from what Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, called the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil. Lincoln was asking Americans to consider the obligations created by slavery. The first of those obligations is to acknowledge the full truth.[2]
An account of the slave trade was written by Aquillana Okojio in 1784:
I was taken aboard the boat "stallion" by a man called Egbert E. Bones who was a cruel slave dealer from Europe. There were 500 of us crammed aboard the vessel. We was chained down to the floor and we were only alowd a tiny bit of excercise per day. The food was disgusting and the stench was unbearable. So many died on the journey to Havana. Once we arrived we were cleaned and scrubbed with water and cocoa butter utill we shone. Then we were put up for auction. The auctioneer bragged about how healthy we were and what sort of work we could do. When it was my turn I was scared out of my wit. In the end I was sold to work on a Plantation in Cuba. The conditions at the plantation were even worse than the ship. All 50 of us were cramped into a tiny room to eat and sleep. When we were woken up at 5 in the morning we were set to work all day until sundown. We had no breaks apart from a small break to eat our measly ration of dry bread and bacon. The work was back aching and very tiring. The scorching heat did not help and many slaves died on the plantation. This was our daily routine for 10 years. Every day all day we worked and sweated for our master. Those who stepped out of line were whipped with a cat o' nine tails. It took 10 whips and you were dead. The whippers were so cruel that they even whipped some who were doing nothing wrong for the sake of it. Some people got deadly diseases and were immidiately killed. The number of slaves who died on the plantation was huge. However as soon as slaves started to die our master got more so he was never short. Some people also committed suicide in all manner of ways including starvation, self hanging and one even cut off his own hand in front of the plantation manager. Life there was horrible, vile and cruel and we all would have done anything to escape that.
This contributed to the decline of the postbellum Southern economy, but it was most affected by the continuing decline in the price of cotton through the end of the century.[3] That made it difficult for the region to recover from the war, as did its comparative lack of infrastructure, which kept products from markets. The South faced significant new competition from foreign cotton producers such as India and Egypt. Northern industry, which had expanded rapidly before and during the war, surged even further ahead of the South's agricultural economy. Industrialists from northeastern states came to dominate many aspects of the nation's life, including social and some aspects of political affairs. The planter class of the South lost power temporarily. The rapid economic development following the Civil War accelerated the development of the modern U.S. industrial economy.
According to the 1860 U.S. census, nearly four million slaves were held in a total population of just over 12 million in the 15 states in which slavery was legal.[4] Of all 8,289,782 free persons in the 15 slave states, 393,967 people (4.8%) held slaves, with the average number of slaves held by any single owner being 10.[4][5] The majority of slaves were held by planters, defined by historians as those who held 20 or more slaves.[6] Ninety-five percent of black people lived in the South, comprising one-third of the population there, as opposed to 2% of the population of the North.[7] Despite being an efficient economic system, slavery did not spread northward due to the nature of the soil in the region and the types of crops typically produced there. At the time, principal importers of slaves were sugar and cotton growing regions. Both of these crops were more suitably farmed on plantations and in the soil of the southern regions. Thus, when land more suitable for these crops was discovered towards the west, slavery spread westward and not to the north. The wealth of the United States in the first half of the 19th century was greatly enhanced by the labor of African Americans.[8][9]
JimWae (talk) 20:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
so if im not mistaken , from the looks of this article the basis of african american origins in brazil began when that 645,000 slaves from america were shipped to brazil and over time that whole population of brazilians became party africanized?
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The slave trade and the products created by slaves' labor, particularly cotton, provided the basis for America's wealth as a nation. Such wealth provided some of the capital for the country's industrial revolution and enabled the United States to project its power into the rest of the world.
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