Slavery has appeared throughout history in many different forms and places. From Africans in the Untied States of America to Jews during World War 2. African American slavery existed in the United States from the early 17th century until 1865. Many have served as warriors, servants, craft workers, plantation workers and tutors. They started as soon as birth and worked as slaves till the day their owners past away or till their own death. Many lives were taken away from them with out permission. Because of this unfair treatment, the Civil War broke out in search for a better solution in freeing the slaves.
Slavery spread quickly in the American colonies. At first the legal status of Africans in America was poorly defined and some were freed after several years of service. In the 1660's, American colonies began placing laws that regulated slave relations. By the 1770s, slaves populated about 40 percent of the population in the Southern colonies, which was the highest concentration in South Carolina, where more than half the people were slaves.
Harriet Tubman, full-length portrait, seated in ch...
A woodcut image of Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman, an African American abolitionist a...Slaves were mostly found where landowners grew staple crops for market. Such as tobacco in the upper South Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and rice in the lower South South Carolina, Georgia. Slaves also worked in large wheat producing places in New York and on horse breeding farms in Rhode Island. By 1860, the slave states of the United States had about 4 million slaves in use. Many Americans turned against slavery during the Revolutionary War in America. They believed it wasn't right to have slaves in the nation where they came and wanted it to known as the land of the free. Many Northern owners dropped slaves but not like in the South where the Southerners didn't see a problem with slavery like people in the North.
Owners housed their slaves and provided them with food and clothing. Plantation workers worked the most out of all slaves. They worked as soon as sunrise to as late as sunset. They were house as well as free workers but many others lives in the worst conditions. Most house slaves lived in their owners home. They worked fewer hours and had lots more privileges then field workers. Southern slaves were not allowed to marry, own property, testify in court, or earn their freedom. Many slaves broke rules and were made examples of by receiving lashings, short rations, and selling family members of slaves away.
The religion of slaves played a big role for them keeping their faith while being slashed and the fact that their lives were based on working as slaves hoping for the day they would be free. Their religion was a mixture of African and Christian. It gave them hope for a better life up in the heavens. State laws prohibited the education of slaves but this didn't stop them from creating their own language and music. Others got the power to run away to freedom including the others who followed Harriet Tubman along an escape system called the Underground Railroad which helped in freeing over 40,000 slaves to their freedom up North threw Canada. Some slaves were hidden in barns or behind secret wall passages in these homes. They were lead by the "conductor"ÃÂ who safely voyaged them threw the railroad to freedom. Slaves were given money, food, shelter, and help to escaping by freed colored or rich white after they ran across the railroad.
Tubman (far left), with Davis (seated, with cane),...
Harriet Tubman
English: Whole map of the underground railroad. Ne...