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Slavery in the United States was a form of forced labor which existed as a legal institution on American soil before the founding of the United States, and remained a legal feature of American society until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865. It had its origins with the first English colonization of North America in Virginia in 1607.Most slaves were African and were held by Europeans.Slaves were spread to the areas where there was good quality soil for large plantations of high value cash crops, such as cotton, sugar, and coffee. The majority of slaveholders were in the southern United States.An animation showing when United States territories and states forbade or allowed slavery, 1789-1861 1. Colonial America 2. 1776 to 1850s3. Civil War and Emancipation 4. Reconstruction to present Four main periods of American Slavery History1. Colonial AmericaThe first record of African slavery in Colonial America was made in 1619. A British pirate ship under the Dutch flag had captured 20 slaves in a battle with a Portuguese ship.The colony was in the middle of a period later known as The Great Migration(16181623).During this period, the colony was badly in need of labors.In addition to African slaves, Europeans were brought as indentured servants. The white citizens of Virginia decided to treat the first Africans in Virginia as indentured servants.And the improving economic conditions in England meant that fewer laborers wanted to migrate to the colonies as indentured servants, so the planters needed to find new sources of labor.The transformation from indentured servitude to racial slavery happened gradually. There were no laws regarding slavery early in Virginias history. However, by 1640, the Virginia courts had sentenced at least one black servant to slavery.1. Colonial AmericaIn 1654, John Casor, a black man, became the first legally recognized slave in the present United States.In 1662 Virginia passed a law, stating that any children of an enslaved mother would follow her status and automatically be slaves, no matter if the father was a freeborn Englishman. The Virginia Slave codes of 1705 further defined as slaves those people imported from nations that were not Christian.In 1735, the trustees of the colony of Georgia passed a law to prohibit slavery, which was then legal in the 12 other colonies. It was meant to eliminate the risk of slave rebellions and make Georgia better able to defend against attacks from the Spanish to the south. But there was popular support for slavery and skillful lobbying by the colonists, and in 1750 slavery again became legal in Georgia.2. 1776 to 18502. 1776 to 1850The growing demand for cotton led many plantation owners west in search of more suitable land. It was for this reason that slavery did not spread to the north, instead spreading west.Historians called this forced migration the Second Middle Passage. Although complete statistics are lacking, it is estimated that 1,000,000 slaves moved west from the Old South between 1790 and 1860.The death rate for the slaves on their way to their new destination across the American South was much less than that of the captives across the Atlantic Ocean. Mortality was still higher than the normal death rate.2. 1776 to 1850Treatment of slaves was both harsh and inhumane. Whether laboring or walking about in public, people living as slaves were regulated by legally authorized violence.By law, slave owners could be fined for not punishing recaptured runaway slaves. Some slave women were used for breeding more slaves. Plantation owners would have intimate relations with a female slave in order to produce more slaves. Some slaves were even forced to have sex with others to increase population and increase the amount of slave product on the market.2. 1776 to 1850Abolitionist movementThroughout the first half of the 19th century, a movement to end slavery grew in strength throughout the United States. During the 1820s and 1830s the American Colonization Society (A.C.S.) was the primary vehicle for proposals to return black Americans to greater freedom and equality in Africa.Slaveholders opposed freedom for blacks, but saw repatriation as a way of avoiding rebellions.After 1830, a religious movement led by William Lloyd Garrison declared slavery to be a personal sin and demanded the owners repent immediately and start the process of emancipation. The movement was highly controversial and was a factor in causing the American Civil War.2. 1776 to 1850Rising tensionsThe economic value of plantation slavery was magnified in 1793The result was the explosive growth of the cotton industry and greatly increased the demand for slave labor in the South.At the same time, the northern states banned slavery, though, the prohibition did not always mean that the slaves were freed.Just as demand for slaves was increasing, the supply was restricted. On January 1, 1808, Congress banned further imports of slaves.However, the internal American slave trade was not banned. Though there were certainly violations of this law, slavery in America became, more or less, self-sustaining.3. Civil War and Emancipation1860 presidential electionThe divisions became fully exposed with the 1860 presidential election.Lincoln, the Republican, won with a plurality of popular votes and a majority of electoral votes.Many slave owners in the South feared that the real intent of the Republicans was the abolition of slavery.The combination of these factors led the South to secede from the Union, and thus began the American Civil War. Northern leaders had viewed the slavery interests as a threat politically, and with secession, they viewed the prospect of a new southern nation, the Confederate States of America, with control over the Mississippi River and the West, as politically and militarily unacceptable.3. Civil War and EmancipationCivil War The American Civil War, beginning in 1861, led to the end of chattel slavery in America.The Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1861, which declared that any property used by the Confederate military, including slaves, could be confiscated by Union forces.Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 was a powerful move that promised freedom for slaves in the Confederacy as soon as the Union armies reached them, and authorized the enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army. In December 1865,the last 40,000 or so slaves were freed in Kentucky by the final ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution .4. Reconstruction to present During Reconstruction, it was a serious question whether slavery had been permanently abolished or whether some form of semi-slavery would appear after the Union armies left. Over time a large civil rights movement arose to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans.Sharecropping债务农债务农An 1867 federal law prohibited a descendant form of slavery known as sharecropping or debt bondage. In actual practice, however, sharecropping arrangements often resulted in peonage for both black and white farmers in the South. 4. Reconstruction to present Educational issuesThe anti-literacy laws after 1832 contributed greatly to the problem of widespread illiteracy facing the freedmen and other African Americans after Emancipation and the Civil War. The problem of illiteracy and need for education was seen as one of the greatest challenges confronting these people as they sought to join the free enterprise system and support themselves during Reconstruction and thereafter.ApologiesOn July 30, 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for American slavery and subsequent discriminatory laws. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a similar resolution on June 18, 2009; it also explicitly states that it cannot be used for restitution claims.Questiones: why the rebellions and uprisings of black slaves failed? why the final liberation of black slaves was brought by the white but not by the black? Revelent books：Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin，Toni Morrisons Beloved，Alice Walkers The Color Purple
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