SLO# 7 Diversity Of Slavery (What I Learned)

Over the course of researching for my blog about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and reading the documents in History 5 at Butte College, I learned slavery was so diverse. The foundation of slavery was African people where viewed as inferior to the white man, so life of servitude was forced upon them. All African slaves endured generations of inhumanity against their people. Africans were enslaved in the 13 colonies, in their own territories like the People of the Congo¹ and many other places. Resident or local slaves escaped the foul Trans-Atlantic slave ships while newcomer slaves were ripped from their native lands and exported on the harsh vessels to their unknown destiny.²
 

Liberators in the Union Army

In 1763, the Emancipation Proclamation, a document of human freedom, was signed. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”, so black men were accepted in the Union Army and Navy to fight for freedom. By the end of the war, 200,000 black soldiers and sailors fought for freedom yet slavery continued in the background.³ Slavery during the American Revolution effected Africans in many ways.

 1Adam Hochschild. King Leopold's Ghost. (Mariner Books: New York). 1999.

 

2Robert E. Desrochers, Jr. Slave-For-Sale Advertisements and Slavery in Massachusetts, 1704-1781. Omohundo Institute of Early American History and Culture. The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 3 Slaveries in the Atlantic World (Jul., 2002), pp.623-664. www.jstor.org/stable/3491467.  

 

3The Emancipation Proclamation. National Archives & Records Administration. 2016. www.archives.gov