American Slavery In The 1800's

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Précis Kolchin, Peter, American Slavery 1619-1877. New York, 1993. Chapter 5, Sections VI-VII, p. 155 – 166 The Southern States of America were manipulated by politics to be an oppression for enslaved black's. In the Early 1700's, slaves who attempted rebellion often had their efforts suppressed, with little or no threat to the whites. These threats were often met with little force and extinguished. By the 1830's rebellions became bigger, reaching numbers as high as two hundred angered slaves. These were met with more adequate force – and again suppressed. By slavery continuing for such a long period of time, this gave slaves an edge to discover better tactics. Slaves soon wisned up on how to get their point's of view across (as…show more content…
It was considerably less dangerous to work individually in escape plans than in large numbers. Although, if slaves did stay in the south, if freedom was reached, would more than likely be short lived, due to some masters seeking extraordinary efforts to recapture their property (by using dog's and professional slave catchers). Some runaways were often helped along their way but coupled with sheer determination of their masters, their efforts were again, like their ancestors, in vain. Recaptured slaves were often harshly punished. More often than not it was a battle of wills between the slave and their master – and due to politics being dramatically unfavourable against the blacks, the masters would often abuse this political freedom in their punishment. However, this would cause a lot of expense and trouble to masters so it was soon established that slaves could cause severe inconvenience and disruption to their business if masters continued like this. Once reasonable authority was exerted by the slaves, many masters saw it easier to let them work within (comparatively) bigger perimeters. Masters tended not to push this convention as slaves had nothing to lose whereas masters had money and pride at stake if some, unspoken, boundaries weren't set. By using the same racist nicknames which whites called blacks, such as “niggers”, with each other, it ridiculed the whole scenario. Thus creating a productive, but by no means healthy relationship between slave masters and their
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