World History: The American Civil War and Reconstruction

When we looked at the end of slavery we briefly discussed the American Civil War. The Civil War has been regularly referred to as the 'Second American Revolution' for the immense cultural and political changes that came with the war. We also have to discuss the end of the war - a particular part of American history called 'Reconstruction'. When we have discussed wars previously on World History we have looked very little about the extensive period after the war has ended. Reconstruction was just as important as the Civil War itself, and has been described by Eric Foner as the 'unfinished revolution'. Today we will look at the Civil War, abolition, slavery, and how Reconstruction was used to try and repair the nation as well as emancipate newly freed slaves.

Slavery in the United States

A plantation 

Slavery was the divisive issue in the USA until it was abolished in 1865. While slavery was coming to an end in the Caribbean and the newly independent Latin American states it was thriving in the American South. For some time after the American Revolution slavery had been defended on the basis that it was a 'necessary evil' until after 1793. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney allowed cotton to be grown on a widescale which saved the institution, and helped expand it. The plantation economy came to dominate the South - a small elite where only a quarter of white southerners owned slaves. With the rise of abolitionism discussions of slavery being a 'necessary evil' were replaced by statements that it was a 'positive good' - owners presented themselves as parents protecting their 'children' from economic poverty of the North or Africa, and that the Bible, particularly Leviticus, justified slavery. This patriarchal nature of slavery extended to the family - women belonged to their husband, divorce was rigidly prohibited, and husbands could legally beat their wives unless the diameter of the stick was larger than a thumb. Plantation owners at times resembled feudal lords in Europe - non-slave owning whites were economically dominated by the plantations, and even duelling continued long in the South after it was abolished in the North. Abolitionist media was strongly censored and outright burnt, slaveowners in Congress got a gag rule silencing abolitionist petitions. 

By the start of the Civil War there were around 4 million slaves - in Louisiana and Mississippi there were more slaves than free blacks and whites. Slavery was brutal and dehumanising; slaves were barred from owning property and arms, testifying in court, from the 1830s barred from learning to read and write, and regularly saw their families torn apart. Violence was very common despite the laws prohibiting the killing of slaves. The whip remains synonymous with slavery. Women regularly faced sexual violence - in 1855 a slave called Celia in Missouri killed her master as he tried to rape her, normally the court viewed it in terms of self-defence but as she was a slave she was not a 'woman' in the eyes of the law and sentenced to death. However, as she was pregnant her execution was postponed as not to deprive her owner's heirs of their property rights. Families regularly were torn apart - 70% of slaves could be expected to be sold during their life. Most slaves worked on plantations where they were more likely to face brutality through direct violence or the elements. Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave describes toiling on a cotton plantation:

In the latter part of August begins the cotton-picking season. At this time each slave is presented with a sack...When a new hand, one unaccustomed to the business, is sent for the first time into the field, he is whipped up smartly, and made for that day to pick as fast as he can possibly. At night it is weighed, so that his capability in cotton picking is known. He must bring in the same weight each night following. If it falls short, it is considered evidence that he has been laggard, and a greater or less number of lashes is the penalty. 

Slavery's oppression had its limits. Despite laws prohibiting it some owners taught slaves, especially house-slaves, how to read - by 1865 10% of slaves were literate. Frederick Douglass in 1845 described how his mistress started teaching him until her master prohibited it, and then in secret he got local children to help him learn. Meanwhile, some slaves were used as overseers and were allowed to use arms. Slaves also resisted, normally through means such as go-slows, breaking ploughs, filling their cotton sacks with rocks etc. Rebellion did happen - such as those led by Denmark Vesey (1822) and Nat Turner (1831) - but unlike their Caribbean counterparts in Haiti and Jamaica they were brutally crushed and resulted in harsh reprisals. Free blacks were massacred by whites following Nat Turner's rebellion as an example, and as he was a preacher sermons were rigidly restricted. Escapes could happen - the Underground Railroad organised by Harriet Tubman helped many slaves escape to the North or Canada. Due to the difficulties, especially following the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, runaway slaves were mostly fit young men. Most slave narratives, where we get the most information about the conditions of slavery, were written by those with unique circumstances - Henry 'Box' Brown mailed himself to Philadelphia and freedom, Frederick Douglass managed to educate himself, and Solomon Northup was a freeman from the North who was kidnapped. There are also issues of self-editing - Harriet Jacobs had to downplay sexual violence performed on her. Regardless, these accounts were integral to the abolitionist movement - Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman put pressure on Lincoln to fight slavery. In the 1930s the WPA got historians to interview former slaves and many were forced to change their accounts to accommodate white historians. When interviewed by African-Americans they were far more honest - one woman gave an entirely different account to the story she told a white historian.

Frederick Douglass

Slave culture also emerged. Through folk stories and songs which last to this day, and helped inspire later music genres, including the blues. With their families being torn apart (Northup describes vividly the trauma a woman named Eliza goes through as she is separated from her children), violence, and poor living conditions a culture developed to cope with it all. African folklore, music, and crafts merged with American counterparts, and Christianity offered solace to many. Abolitionist movements started becoming strong. Due to restrictions they were largely limited to the North where slavery had long since died out. Frederick Douglass became a icon in the abolitionist movement, and his writings became widespread. Many of the later proponents of women's suffrage, including Susan B. Anthony, made their mark by first engaging in abolition.

The Road to Disunion

Where the origins of the Civil War lie has been hotly debated; William Freehling, whom I took the term 'The Road to Disunion' from, placed the origins all the way back to 1776. The American Revolution had left the question of slavery unanswered and the emphasis on a union of states meant that many in the US identified far more with their state than the nation. Furthermore, everything about the US was geared to a compromise between slavery and non-slavery - Washington D.C. is located where it is due to this compromise. In 1819 Missouri started drafting a constitution to join the Union, however, there were debates about whether it should be a slave-state - in 1820 Senator Jesse Thomas of Illinois proposed that Missouri could be a slave-state if Maine, which had long abolished slavery, was also accepted into the Union, and remaining territory below Missouri's southern boundary would allow slavery. The 'Missouri Compromise' would become a focal point in debates over slavery. Over the next thirty years the North and South would become further polarised. While the South remained rural to preserve slavery the North became industrialised and urban - New York's population rose from 33,131 people in 1800 to 813,669 in 1860. Things again came to ahead in 1846 with the Mexican-American War - seen as one of the major events in causing the Civil War. Abolitionists, including the young Abraham Lincoln, criticised the war for supporting slavery and the annexation of half of Mexico in 1848 raised the issue of slavery once more. Four positions emerged about the newly annexed territory: the first, 'Free Soil' suggested by David Wilmot that slavery should be banned in the West; the second suggested by President James Polk, was extending the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific; the third, was suggested by John Calhoun who argued that slaveowners should be able to take slaves to federal land if they wished; and finally, was the idea of 'Popular Sovereignty' which suggested allowing people in the territories decide. People had hoped that they would have a long time to reach a compromise - the discovery of gold in California in 1848 caused 500,000 to move there in three years. The Compromise of 1850 tried to sort it out: the Texan borders were fixed and admitted as a slave state; California was admitted as a free state; Utah and New Mexico Territories could decide whether to become slave or free; the slave trade, but not slavery, was abolished in D.C.; and a new stringent Fugitive Slave Act was passed bringing the issue of slavery to the doors of Northerners.

A depiction of Harpers Ferry

The Compromise didn't help. Abolitionists and pro-slavers became more intense. In 1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin became widely read in the North as the pro-slavery Democrats came to power in the election of that year when the opposing Whigs fell apart. This brings us to Sectional Crisis of the 1850s. In 1854 Democrats Stephen Douglas proposed the building of a Trans-Continental Railroad through unorganised federal territory, however, the Missouri Compromise meant that Douglas couldn't make it a slave state. Douglas ensured that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed splitting the territory in two where 'popular will' would determine whether it would be a free or slave state. To try and tip the balance pro and anti-slavery settlers moved to Kansas causing 'Bleeding Kansas'. A sporadic civil war, where Native Americans lost the most as they had their lands taken from them, broke out. However, the passing of the act upset Northern Democrats and some joined with the Whigs to form a new party - originally called the Anti-Nebraska Party it soon became known as the Republican Party. This was a party made of abolitionists, disaffected Democrats, and former Whigs, including Lincoln. The new party soon was caught in the intense politics of the 1850s. Bleeding Kansas even saw violence in Congress: Republican Charles Sumner in 1856 blamed the South for Kansas so was beaten with a cane by South Carolina Senator Preston Brooks. Brooks was dismissed, but shortly after re-elected, and his supporters wore necklaces of broken canes to show their support for him. Meanwhile, militant abolitionist John Brown became enraged by Brooks so continued intense fighting in Kansas. In October 1859, aided by information supplied by Harriet Tubman but opposed by Frederick Douglass, Brown and 21 other men raided Harpers Ferry, Virginia with the intention of seizing the armoury in order to aid an uprising to free the southern slaves. His raid failed and his execution made him a martyr for abolition. The 1857 Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford further enraged abolitionists when the court declared that black Americans were not citizens.

The bombardment of Fort Sumter

The straw that broke the camel's back would be the 1860 election. The previous election had heavily divided the US - especially on North-South lines - and the serving president, James Buchanan, had done little to solve the issue. In 1860 the Republicans had chose Lincoln to be their presidential candidate, he seemed the perfect choice: an ardent supporter of the Union, was from Illinois so could carry 'doubtful states', publicly opposed the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party so could attract immigrant votes, and had expressed abolitionist sentiments in the past. However, he was feared in the South despite his moderation. Lincoln openly called for the halt in the expansion of slavery - not its abolition - but he was seen as paving the way for an abolitionist president. Meanwhile, the Democrats became split on regional lines, so during the election Lincoln took both the North and 40% of the popular vote. This caused South Carolina in December 1860 to secede, the next month six other states followed, and Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis was elected president of the newly declared Confederate States of America (CSA). At his inaugural address Lincoln attempted accommodation stating that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery' but also warned that 'In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war'. As this was happening, since January 1861, CSA forces had surrounded Fort Sumter which was a fort, held by 15 Union soldiers, in Charleston Harbor. Lincoln decided to make the CSA fire first - he sent a ship with food to the fort causing the CSA to fire on Sumter. The major surrendered, more states seceded, but the South had began fighting.

Lincoln

I briefly want to discuss Abraham Lincoln and his involvement. Lincoln came from a humble farming family in Kentucky, protested the war with Mexico, and had a successful career as a lawyer in Illinois where he also got into politics. Depending on what sources you read you can get the idea that he was an abolitionist, in others that he was firmly against abolition. In the 1858 debate with Senator Stephen Douglas he declared that Douglas 'is not in favor of making any difference between slavery and liberty' while in his inaugural address vowed not to 'interfere with the institution of slavery'. Albeit, in the Douglas debate he firmly stated that while an African-American 'is as much entitled to these [rights] as the white man...he is not my equal in many respects'. Lincoln can be described as a 'quasi-abolitionist'. He re-entered politics thanks to Kansas-Nebraska stating that he 'hated slavery as much as any abolitionist' but the key phrase is 'as any abolitionist' - although detesting slavery he was willing to compromise. He saw slavery's expansion as snuffing out American liberty but could accept its continuation. During the Civil War he firmly became an abolitionist thanks to the influence of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, and through political pragmatism. Hence why a year after he famously wrote that if he could preserve the Union without freeing a slave he would, he would issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln can, therefore, be described as a quasi or moderate abolitionist.

The War

The First Battle of Bull Run

My speciality is political and socio-cultural history so I am not confident with military history. As a result, I won't go into too much detail about the fighting itself. At first everyone believed that it was meant to be a short war - the Battle of Bull Run/Manassas of 21 July 1861 was originally envisioned as the only battle that would take place. Instead it turned into a bloody mess between two untrained armies and the war would last until 1865 claiming somewhere between 620,000 and 750,000 lives. At first it was unclear who would win. The North had greater manpower, resources, and industry whereas the South had the better generals and cotton. Cotton was very important in the global textile economy and the CSA had hoped to use that to entice Europe into aiding them. Napoleonic France did consider it - Louis Napoleon wanted a free hand in Latin America which a unified US prevented - and these plans were only abandoned when Britain refused to intervene. Secession had created intense patriotism - in the North there was the obvious desire to preserve the Union, but why did Southern whites join? After all, there were Unionists in the South - West Virginia exists today as it chose to secede from Virginia - and not all slaves states joined the CSA. Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware all also chose to remain in the Union. Joseph Glatthaar has explained why average whites joined - $11 a month was a good wage for them, pride in the South, a hope that meeting wealthier soldiers could create post-war contacts, white supremacy (you're not the bottom of society when there are slaves), and a desire that they too could own slaves in the future. 

Aftermath of Antietam

The Union relied on Winfield Scott's 'Anaconda Plan' - Scott was the highest ranking general who planned to encircle and squeeze the Confederates. The navy would blockade the ports, the army would occupy the Mississippi river, and then, as the CSA was losing resources, the cities would be easy pickings. Meanwhile, the CSA, relying on General Robert E. Lee, planned a 'Offensive-Defensive' strategy - they would be primarily defensive and would make a few incursions into Union territory. At first, the CSA saw quick success. Using railways they managed to resupply their army at Bull Run and the disastrous Peninsula Campaign of March-July 1862 allowed Lee to route the flotilla army. The Union had hoped to land troops south of the capital of Richmond and march north but they were intercepted by Lee. In September Lee pushed into the Union hoping that a decisive victory would encourage Europe to recognise the CSA - at Antietam/Sharpsburg the Union won a narrow victory. The decisive turning point, however, were the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863. As Lee pushed into Pennsylvania Union General Ulysses Grant was taking city after city along the Mississippi. Gettysburg was one of the most destructive battles - three days of fighting claiming 51,112 casualties and the destruction of Lee's army. Simultaneously, Grant lay siege to the last fort, Vicksburg, and during a lengthy siege, aided by naval bombardment, the fort fell. It was a disaster for the CSA - the Army of Potomac had smashed Lee's forces as Grant captured 30,000 soldiers. The Union got a morale boost thanks to this. Grant was put in charge of the eastern forces as William Tecumseh Sherman was placed in the west. Between the two the CSA began collapsing, even after costly defeats - Grant saw 2,000 casualties in 20 minutes when he attacked Cold Harbor in Virginia. In 1864 there were two campaigns: Overland under Lee and the 'March to the Sea' under Sherman. Grant aimed to pick off Lee's forces in Virginia - at the end of six weeks of fighting Grant lost 60,000 to Lee's 30,000 in intense trench warfare. It aimed to give Lee no breathing room and it succeeded, albeit it earned Grant the title of 'butcher of men'. Sherman aimed to move from Chattanooga to Atlanta destroying local infrastructure in order to break the CSA's economy. It succeeded and in September 1864 Atlanta fell. It would take until April 1865 though for the war to finally end when Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

A Civil War submarine

The Civil War saw incredible changes to warfare. Like the Crimean War it brought the brutal reality of war to the homefront - injured men from trench warfare returned home missing limbs and photos from Antietam became widely distributed. When abolition became a firm part of the North;s aims photos of the freed slave Gordon was also distributed. Telegraphs and railways allowed the quick distribution of supplies and orders - something not seen in many wars before. Trains were perhaps the most important arsenal in fighting the war - troops could quickly be transported across the nation and Atlanta was Sherman's desire as it was the centre of the CSA's railway. Hot air balloons were first used to spy on Confederate lines, and the Confederates tried to use the first submarines to break the Union's naval blockade. Drafting was used to actually get fighters when volunteers started growing thin - the 1863 New York draft riot soon developed into a race riot when whites started attacking African-Americans whom they blamed for the war. In the South drafting exposed divisions in society leading to what African-American historian Charles Wesley in 1937 to describe as 'Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight'. Those who owned 20 slaves, later 15, were exempt from the draft which meant poor whites were more likely to be drafted.

African-Americans and Abolition

The photo of Gordon

The Civil War was caused by slavery and ended slavery. The Confederates, and many Unionists, portrayed the war as a fight to end or preserve the Union, but throughout the war it firmly became linked to slavery. Immediately, General Benjamin Butler declared any captured slaves 'contraband of war', they were not free but not slaves either, despite official protests who feared the border states seceding. It soon became a successful policy, aided by the immense numbers of fleeing slaves, and by the end of 1861 became official policy, and led to the formalisation of the Confiscation Acts. African-Americans were very influential in driving policy - the Confiscation Acts were only passed due to the numbers of slaves escaping. Meanwhile, prominent individuals were influencing Lincoln - he changed his plans to send emancipated slaves to Liberia to what would become the Reconstruction policy. After something would happen which would be known as the 'Second Revolution', writing in London Karl Marx wrote that 'Up to now we have witnessed only the first act of the Civil War - the constitutional waging of war. The second act, the revolutionary waging of war, is at hand'. The Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln the opportunity the begin emancipation and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. From January 1 1863 3 million states in unoccupied Confederate land 'henceforth shall be freed'. In reality, very few slaves were directly freed by the Proclamation but it transformed the Union army into a liberating one - as it marched south it would free the slaves. The capture of Atlanta allowed Lincoln to be re-elected allowing the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery. For this reason John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln in 1865.

The 54th Massachusetts regiment

African-Americans fought in the war as well. Douglass had been lobbying Lincoln to allow African-Americans to serve but he was fearful that it would anger the border states. Instead, originally they were used as scouts and spies, (including Harriet Tubman), as well as cooks, cleaners, and builders for fortifications. Lincoln eventually relented, especially as volunteers began becoming thin on the ground, and segregated units led by white officers were formed. In a white supremacist nation they were paid less, given worse assignments, and blamed in draft riots, but when they fought they dispelled the notion of black inferiority created by centuries of dehumanisation. The photo of Gordon became a rallying cry so by 1865 2,000 black soldiers had enlisted. The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts regiment became one of the most famous African-American regiments, and Lincoln purposefully chose to be surrounded by black guards when he visited Richmond when the Confederates surrendered. However, the Confederates were very unwilling to view African-Americans as legitimate soldiers. Acting as an existential threat to southern slavery the white officer was executed and the soldiers were either taken as slaves or executed. A famous example was the 1864 Fort Pillow Massacre. Future founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, butchered the African-American garrison who had surrendered. 

Women and the War

Women also played a role in the war. As we have seen Harriet Tubman was integral in influencing Lincoln and aiding the Union army. For northern women new opportunities were offered by the war. Setting the stage for the First World War women became nurses and founded the American branch of the Red Cross. Grassroots relief campaigns emerged as part of the newly formed United States Sanitary Commission which gathered money, medical supplies, clothing, and books for both soldiers and freedmen. Women were integral in forming the Sanitary Fairs as New York City's three-week long fair of 1864 raised over $1 million. Clara Barton went out of her way to help injured soldiers personally nursing wounded soldiers and helped organise supply lines. As the war progressed women increasingly engaged in nursing, factory work, and white-collar jobs, however, sexism meant that their actions were ignored or seen as an extension of their 'natural' care-giving role. As suffrage movements placed emphasis on supporting the war this meant that they could not capitalise on their efforts. However, this discrimination meant that feminists emerged after the war to fight for women''s rights - Mary Livermore in Chicago became a noted example. Confederate women served similar roles where Rose Greenhow even ran an espionage service in D.C.! However, only wealthy women managed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by their male relatives going to war. Small farms collapsed with the absence of extra hands, unable to compete with plantations, so flooded Confederate authorities with letters demanding assistance. Independence seemed to be unfeasible in women's letters and led a bread riot in 1863. It was so devastating for the Confederacy that Jefferson Davis literally threw money at women rioting to get them to go away!

Why the North won

Atlanta's devastated railroad

Advantages the South had over the North soon vanished by 1863. The rise of Sherman and Grant gave the North effective generals - especially after one of the South's best generals, Stonewall Jackson, was accidentally shot and killed by his own side. The urbanised North with greater industrial power, production, telegraphs, and railways gave the North a far greater strategic advantage compared to the Confederacy. Sherman's destruction of infrastructure decimated the South's already feeble industry. Slave economies hampered the South, especially following the Emancipation Proclamation. Europe had firmly turned against slavery so defeat at Antietam and Gettysburg, as well as Lincoln proclaiming emancipation, alienated Europe from intervening - Lincoln was proudly declared the 'Great Emancipator', statues of him were built in Edinburgh, and he was made a citizen of San Marino. The CSA had banked on Britain, in particular, supporting them due to cotton; instead Britain increased cotton farming in India, to the expense of Indians, and began buying from Egypt. The Emancipation Proclamation encouraged slaves to flee which deprived the Confederacy of their labour. Hyperinflation hit. Not only was the CSA attempting to fight a war but also trying to create a new nation, they had printed new textbooks to be taught in schools and issued new currencies. To fund this they took out huge loans and printed more money. In 1862 bacon cost 33 cents, it rose to $7.50 in 1865. Wages for soldiers started shrinking leading to desertions from poorer whites, and 1 million refugees were created thanks to the fighting. Through these reasons the North won the war.

Presidential vs. Radical Reconstruction

It is one thing to win a war but another thing to win a peace. As shown by Eric Foner Reconstruction did not begin with the official surrender - Lincoln had planned, and started implementing, Reconstruction as early as 1863. It had two aims: re-admit the seceded states and emancipate the former slaves. However, there were divisions about how this should be done. Of course, Lincoln by this time had pushed for emancipation with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, but there were limits. Lincoln drafted the 10% - if 10% of voters pledged loyalty to the Union the state could be readmitted - whereas 'Radical Republicans' in Congress wanted it to be at 50%. In the end, Lincoln vetoed Radical Republican requests. In March 1865 the Freedman's Bureau was formed to help refugees and help freed slaves in their transition from slaves to freedom. We will never know how Lincoln would have overseen post-war Reconstruction thanks to Booth's bullet. His vice-president, Andrew Johnson, was a Democrat, an anti-abolitionist, and only chosen to be Lincoln's vice-president as a way to reconcile the South. Johnson clashed with Radical Republicans, especially Thaddeus Stevens who was a firm abolitionist. Again, if Stevens had not died of old age in 1868 Reconstruction could have been a greater success. In contrast to Republican wishes Johnson reduced Union military presence from 152,000 to 38,000 within a year, and pardoned 7,000 Confederate leaders. He further tried to veto the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments - legal equality before the law and the right to vote based on race - and was almost impeached. 

A cartoon of the Freedmen's Bureau

In 1868 Ulysses Grant was elected president and was more than willing to make Reconstruction work. Oliver Howard was given greater power over the Freedmen's Bureau. The Bureau aimed to educated newly freed slaves and divide former plantation land in order to create independent black farmers. 'Forty acres and a Mule' was promised for newly freed slaves, but education saw successes. By 1870 over 1,000 new schools for African-Americans were formed. Grant was also keen to break opposition to Reconstruction, and groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) began diminishing as Reconstruction went along. As we'll see, initial successes turned to ash.

Failures

It is undeniable that Reconstruction failed - an 'unfinished revolution' in the words of Eric Foner. Despite opposition from Radical Republicans the white planter class soon took control of the South again, and it became worse when key Radicals, like Stevens, were sidelined, retired or died. As early as 1867 the medical systems of the Freedmen's Bureau was dismantled and by 1872 the project was abandoned entirely. Whites soon moved to ensured that newly emancipated slaves lost access to political and economic freedom. Whites from the North were described as 'carpetbaggers' as their white allies in the South were called 'scalawags' - both were subjected to violence. African-Americans and their allies were regularly terrorised by white supremacist militias, most notably the KKK, who were controlled by planters. Unlike later versions the Reconstruction era KKK were less organised and hierarchical; many of the symbolism and actions we associate with the KKK comes from the movie Birth of a Nation. Lynchings, arson attacks, and race riots became endemic in the South. White elites also sought to disenfranchise freed slaves. In 1869 a former slave in Tennessee said that 'I do not see none of my color in office...When a white man kills a black man by having black men on the jury bench we then could defend our rights before the law'. However, the 'Black Codes', the precursors to Jim Crow, stripped free slaves of their rights. In 1870 an Alabama court made a beaten black woman raise $16.45 to take her attackers to court believing she would be unable to; when she did the case was dropped. 1872 saw Kentucky blacks were barred from testifying in court, and 1870 saw the implementation of a poll tax in Tennessee to disenfranchise blacks. 'Grandfather laws' were passed - meaning you could vote only if your grandfather could - and strict literacy tests for eligibility to vote were all implemented. Vagrancy laws forced freedmen back onto their old plantations and sharecropping indebted freedmen permanently tying them to the land. 1877 Reconstruction came to an end. The Republicans lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College - to get the presidency they made a deal with the Democrats. They would build a railroad and abandon Reconstruction for the presidency. 

Black Reconstruction

Hiram Revels

William Du Bois has highlighted how Reconstruction was not an entire failure when looking at it from the bottom up. This view later influenced Eric Foner. For newly freed slaves it offered a brief 'time in the sun'. The passing of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, as well as the 1866 Civil Rights Act, affirming all citizens are equal before the law, allowed African-Americans assert their own civil rights. Furthermore, before the implementation of the Black Codes there were African-American politicians who rose to prominence in the South. Jonathan Gibbs became Secretary of State for Florida, Hiram Revels became Senator for Mississippi, Jefferson Long became Representative for Georgia, and Josiah T. Wells became Representative for Florida to name a few. Even after through disenfranchisement and political intrigue they lost their positions and the vote what began under Reconstruction continued. Black faith and education managed to exist despite white opposition forming a separate and thriving black community. Thanks to this, Eric Foner has argued that the Civil Rights Movement became the 'Second Reconstruction'. Emancipation in the 1860s and 1870s allowed the formation of new communities which could resist oppression, and created the conditions for the generation of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks to express their rights.

Conclusion

The statue of General Lee, the Confederate army flag, and Nazi imagery at Charlottesville in 2017

It is easy to see why Reconstruction is seen as a 'second' or 'unfinished' revolution. Through war Americans started identifying themselves with their own country instead of their own state. It further destroyed the slave system and gave freedom to 4 million people. Reconstruction showed an attempt to create a new society, and the failure to do so set the stage for the continued oppression of African-Americans. Meanwhile, memories of the Civil War have been insidiously been shifted for political purposes. The 'Lost Cause Myth' has shaped discussions of the Civil War to be about Southern emancipation in the face of Northern aggression, you may see it referred to as the 'War of Northern Aggression', where slavery is downplayed. Many of the statues, or places named after, Confederate leaders were erected around the time when African-American civil rights movements were growing, 1900-20 and 1950-60. Recently the alt-right has used the Civil War to push white supremacy - as seen with the 2017 Charlottesville Protest which saw the alt-right murder a protester. This revising of history has become ingrained in American culture - Gone with the Wind romanticises the Confederacy while the play The Clansman, and its film adaption Birth of a Nation, led to the return of the KKK in 1915 as it portrays the KKK as heroes. Although the parties have shifted Republicans today still claim to be the 'Party of Lincoln' - ironic considering Lincoln saw one of the greatest state interventions in US history - and until the 1930s African-Americans overwhelmingly voted Republican. What is important to remember is the importance of African-Americans in the Civil War and Reconstruction - they ensured that slavery was destroyed and that their rights could survive long after the government lost interest.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-David Herbert Donald, Jean Harvey Baker, and Michael F. Holt, Civil War and Reconstruction, (New York, NY: 2001)

-Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, Updated Edition, (New York, NY: 2014)

-Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Fourth Edition, (New York, NY: 2014)

-Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave, (London: 1853/2014)

-Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, (Boston, MA: 1861)

-Frederick Douglass, Narrative  of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, (Boston, MA: 1845)

-William Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, (New York, NY: 1935)

-Gore Vidal, (ed.), Selected Speeches and Writings by Abraham Lincoln, (New York, NY: 1992)

-Joseph Glatthaar, 'Everyman's War: A Rich and Poor Man's Fight in Lee's Army', Civil War History, 54:3, (2008), 229-246

-William Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Volume 1, Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, (Oxford: 1990)

Thank you for reading. Next time we will be looking at the British Empire in India. For other World History posts we have a list here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: The End of Slavery: Abolition, Rebellion, Successes, Failures

The symbol of abolition 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?'

Slavery has been a common stain on society throughout human history. Most societies which we have looked at on World History have practised slavery in some way or another, and the last time that we looked specifically at slavery was when we discussed the Atlantic Slave Trade. Today we're looking at how the slave trade and slavery came to an end, and how there were limitations to abolition. Due to how endemic slavery was, and how many forms it took, we cannot discuss the entire history of anti-slavery in just the 1700s and 1800s alone - for example, we'll be discussing the end of serfdom in Russia and slavery in the Ottoman Empire in future posts. Today we're looking at the end of slavery, and the movements against slavery, since the 1700s.

Anti-Slavery before 1700

As long as there have been slaves there have always been an anti-slavery movement. Anti-slavery in the Americas had for a longtime been condemned by both Europeans and the Americas, however, not in a way that we would imagine. Originally in the Americas the indigenous population was enslaved which proved to be one of the prime reasons for the Great Dying - where 90% of the indigenous population were killed thanks to colonialism. The original criticisms of slavery were directed at the enslavement of indigenous peoples - in 1609 Philip III of Spain spoke of 'the great excesses that might occur if slavery were to be permitted in any instance' and in 1639 Pope Urban VIII threatened excommunication for anyone practising slavery. Some of it was pragmatic though - slavery was evidently wiping out the indigenous communities which in turn was wiping out available labour. The enslavement of black Africans were seen as being fine; despite condemning the enslavement of indigenous communities Bartolome de Casas argued that Africans were 'natural' for hard labour. Slavery had also been brought to an end by several areas across Europe - 1315 France banned slavery and the idea of 'English Law' created an anti-slavery impulse on the continent. This was actually used to free slaves - 1755 to 1769 saw several court cases in Britain where slaves arriving in Britain used this idea to obtain their freedom, and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas in 1776 got his freedom when he was sent to France. These ideas were planted and would come into fruition later on. Also, before we move onto abolitionist movements it should also be noted that quite a few Christian denominations opposed slavery on moral grounds - the Quakers in the US are a particularly good example.

Abolitionist Movements

A depiction of the Zong Massacre

One of the key aspects of the end of slavery is the importance of abolitionist groups raising public awareness of the horrors of slavery. As expected, abolitionist movements had existed for a longtime but it was following the Zong Massacre in 1781; a Liverpool slave ship, the Zong, sailed by Luke Collingwood set sail from Sao Tome in September 1781 with 442 slaves, but on their way to Jamaica they got lost. With resources running scarce, and with many slaves dying of illness, and for every slave that died it would be on his head, unless if there was a risk to the crew. As a result, Collingwood had the surviving 133 slaves 'thrown alive into the sea, [so] it would be the loss of the underwriters.' These events were common but it managed to go to court in 1783, and major abolitionist, Granville Sharp, got other abolitionists to spread the word of the massacre. Thomas Day composed a poem entitled The Dying Negro, Dr Beilby Porteus issued sermons denouncing slavery, and George Gregory denounced slavery in Essays Historical and Moral. Although at this stage the general public seemed disinterested, it did influence abolitionists - especially after 1788 when Parliament passed an act for the first time to try and control the Slave Trade. Particularly in the Anglo-American world the Zong Massacre influenced a rise in abolitionist movements. The most notable was the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade which was founded by Quakers as well as Sharp and publisher Thomas Clarkson. However, the most famous member was William Wilberforce - an evangelical philanthropist and politician he provided a key leadership role in the abolitionist movement.

This image of Gordon the slave was distributed by American abolitionists

How did abolitionists get support? Largely it was through public speeches, publications, the funding of African accounts of slavery, and funding anti-slavery missionary societies. Granville Sharp and Wilberforce are the best know abolitionists due to this - their presence in parliament and public society, thanks to their wealth, made them publicly known. Josiah Wedgewood could use his wealth to make the famous 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?' which became adopted across the abolitionist movement. Women were very important to the abolitionist movement - especially in the United States. Especially wealthy women, like Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecroft in the UK and Susan B Anthony in the US, were integral in publishing anti-slavery publications. From 1787-8 it is estimated that 10% of subscribers to the Abolition Society were women. A female version of Wedgewood's ceramic was also produced. It is important to not overlook the working-class aspect to abolition. In the UK working-class abolitionists, although sidelined in the movement, could help by boycotting produce made through the slave-trade. The religious Great Awakening in the United States in the North allowed working-class Americans to oppose slavery on moral terms - by 1838, after five years of existence, the American Anti-Slavery Society obtained 250,000 members. The American anti-slavery movement could be more radical. First published in 1831 The Liberator journal featuring the writing of William Lloyd Garrison savaged the American system of slavery ,and even called for abrogating the Constitution and dissolving the Union to end the US' complicity in slavery.

'Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?'

Continental Europe and Brazil abolitionist societies were fairly different from their English-speaking counterparts. The French abolitionist societies, such as the Amis de Noirs formed in 1788, were a more wealthy, elite movement preferring to work within the system and acting as brokers with external pressure groups. This is particularly noted in Brazil whose 'three stages of abolition' (abolishing of the trade in 1851; 'freedom of the womb' in 1871; and the 'Golden Law', abolition for all in 1888) were largely done behind closed doors. Of course, from the 1860s there was a grassroots abolitionist movement, and free and slave black opposition, so it is important to not ignore this aspect. The more radical nature of the French Enlightenment also brought in abolitionist ideas - as David Hume in Edinburgh and Thomas Jefferson in the US criticised but not condemned slavery, whereas Denis Diderot in the Encyclopedie overtly denounced it. In the US and Latin America their independence movements had used the rhetoric of freedom and liberty. As we saw when we looked at Latin America slaves used this language to justify their freedom, but it also caused a conundrum. How could people call for liberty as they kept slaves? Across parts of Latin America and the Northern US slavery came to an end when slaves successfully showed their own enslavement went against these ideas - Elizabeth Freeman in 1780 used the Constitution to get slavery abolished in Massachusetts as an example.

Black Abolition

Olaudah Equiano, the key abolitionist

Abolition was far from a white movement - in fact white abolitionists sometimes hindered black attempts to bring about their own emancipation. Slave uprisings, especially the Haitian Revolution, were at times condemned by white abolitionists, including Olympe de Gouges, and were even dehumanised. Especially female slaves were stripped of agency - in an attempt disprove the idea that black Africans were violent they were stripped of humanity. As a result black abolitionists, with perhaps the exception of American abolitionists, have been overlooked. The best known individual is perhaps Olaudah Equiano, also known as Gustavus Vassa. Equiano, in his account, was born around 1745 in what is now Nigeria - some historians have argued that he was born in South Carolina and combined narratives of African slaves, although it is heavily debated. Equiano lived a truly fascinating life - traumatised by being taken from his sister, he became a slave, a sailor, a devout Christian, and then an abolitionist. In 1794 he published a story of his life, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, where he showed the horrors of slavery, and the trauma of being separated from his sister, and it became a bestseller. Like many abolitionists he was a devout Christian and that is shown in his text - Equiano later was a key figure in the London Missionary Society. His text was so controversial that pro-slavery individuals tried to smear it as being fictitious. Equiano was very important in the abolitionist movement before he was published - Sharp learnt about the Zong Massacre due to Equiano. Britain had the Sons of Africa - an abolitionist group, working closely with Wilberforce etc, made up of freed slaves. In 1731 Ignatious Sancho arrived in the UK where he managed to published speeches denouncing slavery along a Christian lens, and there was also Ottabah Cuguano. Born in Ghana he was freed in 1752 in Grenada and went to Britain where he published Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. Here he denounced slavery, and argued it was morally right for slaves to resist their masters.

Frderick Douglass, c.1879

In Cuba, the independence movement became closely tied with abolition. In 1868 Carlos Manuel de Cespedes declared that 'The Cuban Revolution...could hardly accept the great contradiction of limiting these to only one part of the population of the country.' There were limits to this - pro-independence slaveowners could keep their slaves - but former slaves, or their descendants, became leaders in the movement. The US is particularly known for black abolitionists. Largely this was due to the Underground Railroad which by 1850 is believed to have helped 100,000 escape. Harriet Tubman was a key figure in the Railroad; born into slavery herself she operated under the name of 'Moses' and managed to free over seventy individuals. Southern police could not fathom the idea that a black woman could be the mysterious Moses which aided in her success, as well as her own intelligence. Frederick Douglass has been cited as being one of the most important US abolitionists. Born a slave he taught himself to read and managed to make his way to New York and freedom - his books, like Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), became instant bestsellers. In his Narrative his depiction of the brutality of slavery, both physical and emotional, resonated with audiences, and his discussion of how a friendly old lady, who owned him, was forced to keep him illiterate by her husband showed how destructive slavery was. It destroyed the humanity of even the owners. However, we get a skewed image of slavery through many narratives - mostly young men from a few states had the opportunity to free themselves. Other narratives are exceptional - Solomon Northup was free but taken as a slave, Harriet Jacobs hid in an attic (tragically she had to downplay sexual violence enacted on her to be published), and Henry 'Box' Brown managed to mail himself to Philadelphia. Hence, we only have a small account of what lives of slaves were like.

Rebellion

The statute of Samuel Sharpe

Often it is overlooked how important slave rebellions were in bringing an end to slavery. As mentioned earlier, and a previous World History post, was the Haitian Revolution. Slaves in the French colony Saint-Domingue rose up, defeated European powers, established a black republic, and defeated Napoleon's brother-in-law. Due to the success of the Haitian revolutionaries, such as Toussaint L'Ouverture, fighting French forces for the Spanish and British the French republicans finally abolished slavery in 1794. Napoleon hoped to bring back slavery to enrich his empire so tried to reintroduce slavery and restore French rule to the island - France was roundly defeated. It would take until 1848, however, for France to abolish slavery across the entire empire. Haiti offered a beacon across the enslaved world - freedom was possible. Meanwhile, despite abolishing the slave trade in 1807 Britain continued the practice in its empire; the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was transformed in 1823 by William Wilberforce into the Anti-Slavery Society. The emergence of black deacons, including Baptists, in Jamaica gave slaves increased independence on religious lines. On Christmas Day 1831 a black Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe, encouraged slaves to strike and between 60,000 and 300,000 slaves took part in one of the largest slave rebellions. Although suppressed it shattered the colonial system - Hugh Thomas places it as one of three reasons why slavery was abolished in the British Empire (the other two was the willingness of a reformist Whig government, and a renewal of the anti-slavery movement with Thomas Fowell Buxton in parliament). Spain similarly abolished slavery in Cuba for similar reasons - hoping to keep a lid on Cuban nationalism Spain abolished slavery to show that it could be reformist. 

The United States and Brazil saw numerous slave rebellions - if anything it was traditional in Brazil with the quilombos. Unlike in Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba slave rebellions did not bring abolition in Brazil and the US. The spectre of Haiti hung over both slave states - the US was keen to hamstring the Haitian economy to prevent it inspiring other slave rebellions - and reaction against slave rebellions were harsh. In the US, rebellions in Richmond (1800), Louisiana (1811), and Charleston (1822) were just some rebellions brutally crushed. The most famous one was Nat Turner's Rebellion in Southampton Valley, Virginia on August 22 1831. Turner was a slave preacher and upon seeing an eclipse (albeit he originally wanted to lead a revolt on July 4) led a revolt attacking white families and plantations - despite the idea that he ordered all white people killed he actually called for Quakers and the Dutch to be spared. It was crushed and Turner hung stating just before he died, 'Was not Christ crucified?'. A fear of 'a Turner being in any family' swept the South - Virginia through out a plan to gradually emancipate slaves, blacks (slave and free) were banned from being preachers, and slaves were prohibited from being taught to read. Slave rebellions could see success, however. An abolitionist from Sao Paulo in 1918 recalled how a slave named Pio allowed around 100 slaves to flee, and then there was the Amistad. The Amistad was moving from one Cuban port to another in 1839 when 53 slaves took over the ship and demanded that they been returned to Africa. The captain instead took them to Long Island, New York, and while the president wanted to return the slaves to Cuba abolitionists, including former president John Quincy Adams, convinced the Supreme Court that the Amistad had violated international laws against the slave trade. The slaves were returned to Africa. Albeit it was to Sierra Leone - not where they came from. 

Anti-Abolition

Slavery existed because it was popular and profitable. As argued by Hugh Thomas, the Industrial Revolution in Liverpool and Glasgow were funded thanks to the profits from sugar plantations in the Caribbean. Planters had considerable political power - profits from sugar, tobacco and coffee. In the British Caribbean in the 1770s profits came to £3.8 million (£450 million on today's money), and Saint-Domingue held most of the French wealth. Those who owed their wealth to slavery in Britain, France, Spain, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the US offered a very strong bulwark against abolition. During Cuba's Ten Years' War (1868-1878) support for independence was far less strong in the sugar plantation dominated west compared to the east. Similarly, opposition to abolition was strongest in states reliant on slavery, and slave-states in the US were even willing to secede in order to preserve slavery. Modern racism, partially, emerged thanks to the slavery. As abolitionists dehumanised slaves by stripping them of agency pro-slavery propaganda portrayed the free slave as a mindless brute prone to murder and rape. Fears of racial mixing were pervasive in colonial societies. Haiti, and other slave uprisings, caused hysterical fears of a race war. Haiti freed its slaves and there was violence, we therefore cannot free our slaves. During the Ten Years' War Spain, and loyalist Cubans, portrayed the revolt as a black insurrection wanting to establish a black republic along the lines of Haiti.

The US and the Civil War

African-Americans in the Union Army

I want to devote a World History post to the Civil War so I won't go into too much detail here. Contrary to the 'Lost Cause' myth the US Civil War was about slavery. Naturally, there were other factors, Northern economic domination and states' rights, but even then they were due to slavery - slavery kept the Southern economy rural and it was states' rights to keep slaves. Autonomy and pride in your own state helped convince everyday people in the South to the Confederacy but so was slavery. There are three reasons for this: there was a hope that a regular farmer could own slaves in the future; there was a fear that emancipating slaves would create competition for manual work; and poor whites had the knowledge that they weren't at the bottom of society. Since independence there had always been tension between the North and South - Washington D.C. was even built as a compromise - and the growth of abolition in the North angered the South. Tensions continued to grow as Abraham Lincoln was elected. The Republican Party had emerged as a Northern, abolition supporting party and although it is debated if Lincoln was an abolitionist the South definitely viewed him as one - the Republicans didn't even appear on Southern voting tickets. The South seceded and the Civil War began. The war would end slavery. One part pragmatism and one part genuine abolition Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declaring slaves in seceded states freed. African-Americans were then encouraged to enlist in the Union army, and in 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery - to an extent.

Africa and Abolition

A British depiction of a Dahomian sacrifice ceremony, c.1793

A key region that we have yet to discuss is Africa. As argued by Walter Rodney, the slave trade had made West African states heavily reliant on the slave trade. Britain in 1807 banned the slave trade and used its navy to enforce its ban across the Atlantic - Brazil quickly abolished slavery in 1851 due to British pressure. As a result, West African states saw a crisis - they had been made dependent on the slave trade and now it was throttled. Different states reacted differently. Asante, in modern Ghana, was receiving over 5,000 slaves a year between 1807 and 1816 but now they lost the ability to sell their slaves. Naturally, slaves disliked being enslaved and were starting to riot in the capital of Kumasi. Then Asante had a stroke of luck - to the north the Sokoto Caliphate was established. In need of slaves, gold, and kola nuts, to make a non-alcoholic drink, Sokoto offered a new market for Asante. Slaves were used en masse in gold mines and nut farms, Akan goldfields produced 27,000 ounces of gold in 1807 to 35,000 after 1850, and other slaves were sold to Sokoto. Local leaders who made a fortune through farming and mining bought slaves as a way to show economic power. Meanwhile, Dahomey (in modern Benin) suffered. Due to British pressure Dahomian king Gezo had started restricting slavery and human sacrifice - two things needed for legitimacy. Instead he placed less emphasis on slavery and more on palm oil exports losing him domestic support. In 1858 he was ousted in a coup by his own son.

Britain was keen to stamp out the slave trade in Africa and German writer Goethe described it best: Everybody knows their declamations against the slave trade; and, while they have palmed off on is all sorts of human maxims as the foundation of their proceedings...they themselves use the blacks. Anti-slavery was used as an excuse to exert British, and later European, power over Africa. As we saw already they intervened in Asante and Dahomey to control their economies and many famous explorers were integral in British rule. For example, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), formed by David Livingstone in 1857, prided itself on combating slavery in Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania - they often failed to mention that their first converts were bought by them. For centuries African slaves had been taken to the Arabian peninsula and India via Zanzibar. Britain established its own interests on Zanzibar, ostensibly to end slavery, in order to also monopolise trade in other goods. Slavery exploited Africa and abolition was used as a way to create a new exploitation.

A sketch of Granville Town

Finally, we also have colonisation in the name of abolition. Granville Sharp had read a pamphlet by Danish botanist Henry Smeathman called Plan of a Settlement to be made near Sierra Leona, on the Grain Coast of Africa. Sharp believed that charity was not enough to help freed slaves and convinced parliament that repatriation was needed. In May 1787 290 men and 41 women arrived in Africa and formed the settlement of Granville Town in land bought from a local sub-chief nicknamed King Tom. Things went bad quickly. Disease and rains wiped out half of the town's population and there was an issue of settlers going off to join slave traders! A new sub-chief, King Jimmy, in 1790 gave the settlers an ultimatum after his village had been attacked: leave in three days because I'll attack. Despite this, in 1791 the Sierra Leone Company was formed and 1,190 volunteers from Nova Scotia (mostly freed during the American Revolution) and 119 Europeans formed a new colony. Equiano even aided in this but was dismissed when he complained of financial mismanagement. Despite being burnt by the French in 1794 the colony soon grew and whenever Britain raided a slave ship they sent the slaves to Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, the US in 1820 formed the American Colonization Society - close to Sierra Leone Monrovia was formed in 1822 which grew to 5,000 occupants by 1840. 

Limits

A sketch of three members of the KKK in Mississippi, c.1871

Despite abolition there were immense limits to the end of slavery. When slavery was ended now freed slaves saw very little change. Britain chose to pay £20 million, about 40% of the treasury or £16.5 billion in today's money, in bailing out former slave owners - many of Britain's wealthy elite today, including former prime minister David Cameron, owe some of their wealth to this. Similar occurrences happened across the world. Brazilian former slaves often had to stay on their old plantations or became a significant portion of the urban poor. The Republicans after the Civil War attempted a policy called 'Reconstruction' to help former slaves, however, government intransigence and Southern opposition prevented its success. The Ku Klux Klan emerged in 1865 to terrorise and murder former slaves and their allies - centuries of slavery gave way to a century of Jim Crow. Racism as we know it today emerged in this time period. Africans in India was classified as 'Untouchable' and the bottom of society, and former slaves, and their descendants, were treated with contempt in society.

India indentured labourers in Mauritius, 1917

Slavery continued in another form in the British empire as they were exerting power over Africa on the pretence of ending slavery. Indians had been taken as slaves since the 1600s and a series of famines in the 1700s caused thousands to tens-of-thousands of Indians to be sold into slavery. Around a third of slaves in the Cape Colony were Indians and 500 were sold as weavers in Sri Lanka. When slavery was abolished indentured servitude was created. People would work for several years and be paid in a lump sum, but the employer basically owned their employee. Flogging, despite government restrictions, was common, the work was the same that slaves once did, and movement was restricted - the only difference was there was a chance that they would get paid after several years. From 1833 until around 1920 this policy took over 3.5 million Indians across the world creating a large Indian diaspora from Kenya to Guyana to Fiji. For example, by the 1940s 60,965 Indians lived in Fiji; 238,909 were in Mauritius; and 453,063 were in Mauritius. Mauritius' first prime minister was Indian, and his father had been an indentured labourer. 

Conclusion

Today we've only just glanced at the end of slavery and its repercussions. When we look at attempts to reform Russia and the Ottoman Empire, as well as the American Civil War, we'll focus more on certain aspects of the end of slavery. The end of slavery is often taught in schools, but it is often a simplified aspect - when I learnt about it we focused heavily on William Wilberforce, and it took until I went to university to learn of the Jamaican Rebellion. Women and men of all classes and races were instrumental in the end of slavery regardless of whether it was violent, peaceful, or otherwise. However, it is hard to imagine how ingrained slavery and its legacy remains today. Racism in its current form was born from slavery, and few attempts to improve the situation of freed slaves means that two centuries on their descendants are still suffering under oppression. Slavery still continues today. Mauritania only banned slavery in 1980 and its very likely that people are still enslaved, as we speak speak black Africans are being sold in markets in Libya, and human trafficking has once again become a global issue. Looking at how abolition and the end of slavery occurred in the nineteenth century we can maybe understand how to deal with the modern crisis and why inequality persists today.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870, (London: Macmillan, 1998)

-Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Fourth Edition, (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2014)

-Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor, (London: Simon & Schuster, 2014)

-Seymour Drescher, 'Brazilian Abolition in Comparative Perspectives', The Hispanic American Historical Review, 68:3, (1988), 429-460

-Robert Edgard Conrad, (ed.), Children of God's Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983)

-Ada Ferrar, Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999)

-Paul Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)

-Vincent Carretta, (ed.), The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings of Olaudah Equiano, (London: Penguin, 2003)

-Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave, (London: Collins, 1852/2014)

-David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823, (London: Cornell University Press, 1975)
-Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, (Dar es Salaam: Bogle-L'Ouvurture Publications, 1973)

-Marina Carter, ‘Slavery and Unfree Labour in the Indian Ocean’, History Compass, 4, 5 (2006), 800-813

-Megan Vaughan, ‘Slavery and Colonial Identity in Eighteenth-Century Mauritius’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 8 (1998), 189-214

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it useful. The next World History posts will look at the jihadi movements in West Africa in the early-1800s. For other World History posts please see our list here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: The American Revolution

When completing his history of the world in The Age of Extremes Eric Hobsbawm placed the Age of Revolution as starting in 1776 with that of the American Revolution, (although he originally placed it in 1789 due to his series starting as a history of Europe). The American Revolution was one of the key events in modern history with it leading to the creation of the USA and helped spawn ideas of liberty. The Revolution was a complex event leaving long-lasting and contradictory legacies which continues to influence the world today. In this post we'll look at the ideological origins of Revolution, the events which set the stage for Revolution, the War of Independence, its impact, results, and legacies. 

Origins

In 1764 the editor of the New-Hampshire Gazette wrote 'By this means the spirited Englishman, the mountainous Welshman, the brave Scotsman,and Irishman, and the loyal American, may be firmly united and mutually resolved to guard the glorious throne of Britannia.' How then, around a decade later, did the colonists of the Thirteen Colonies come to revolt against Britain? As with many events in history we have a series of reasons behind the origins of the Revolution. Last World History post we looked at the Seven Years' War which contributed to the origins of Revolution. The War pushed France out of North America opening former French lands to British settlement and into conflict with Native Americans. A mixture of encroachment into their land and 'pan-Indianism' from a Delaware religious prophet named Neolin, (these two points will become a recurring factor in American-Native American relations in the years to come), caused a war, called Pontiac's War, on May 7 1763 when British troops were attacked by Chippewa warriors at Lake St. Clair, near Detroit. The war would last until 1766 when more land was taken from Native Americans but in 1763 the king, George III, issued a proclamation creating new colonies and forbidding white settlement east of the Appalachian Mountains. The reason for this was because Britain was unwilling to be drawn into a series of border wars, but the American colonists and land speculators saw this as a personal attack. They wanted to settle, or buy, the land although in practice the 'Proclamation Line' was ignored. By 1771 over 10,000 colonists had settled in the Ohio Valley causing massacres of Native Americans, such as in Pennsylvania. In the 1730s and 1740s a Protestant religious revival called the Great Awakening swept over the colonies where even those sceptical of religion, like Benjamin Franklin, became enraptured by religious preachers. Not only did this lay the foundation of Revolution as it encouraged greater social participation and there were calls for the people to choose their ministers, but one particular act passed by Britain fed into this. When Britain took French colonies in Canada this brought into the empire more Catholics. To secure their allegiance in 1774 the Quebec Act expanded the colony of Quebec and emancipated Catholics. The revitalised Protestants saw this as a betrayal of their faith and London strengthening Catholics, and settlers were aggravated as the expanded Quebec ate into land which they could settle. 

A critique of the Stamp Act

The Seven Years' War was very expensive costing Britain around £161 million. Taxes were raised across the empire and especially in the American colonies as it was seen that as Britain had fought the war for them they should pay for it. As a result, a series of taxes were passed which aggravated colonists - we'll get to them soon so we'll discuss the ideology behind opposition to taxes now. A common misconception, which seems to largely be held by aspects of the political Right, was that the protests were over taxation; it is often overlooked that the actual phrase was 'No Taxation without Representation'. A prevailing thought among British politicians at the time was 'virtual representation' as opposed to 'direct representation'. With virtual representation it was believed that those who sat in parliament represented the entire empire; the merchants who sat in parliament therefore represented all merchants across the empire. This idea was highly contested in both Britain and elsewhere in the colonies; it is no lie to say how corrupt this could be, until 1832 Old Sarum with a population of 7 had equal representation in parliament as Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This also linked to ideas of liberty. Many of the leaders of the American Revolution were influenced by the British Enlightenment. When we say Enlightenment we should really say 'Enlightenments' as each region of Europe had their own specific Enlightenment. The British Enlightenment, (we can also say Scottish due to how many Scottish thinkers there were), focused on ideas of individual liberty, property rights and secularism. Of these included the 'Father of Capitalism' Adam Smith and humanists like David Hume. Enlightenment humanism, in contrast to Renaissance humanism, placed emphasis on secularism, the separation of religion and state, and emphasis on logic over superstition. The famous figures of the Revolution including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were deeply inspired by this branch of the Enlightenment. 

Thomas Paine

I want to focus on one particular part of the ideological origins of the American Revolution which inspired people across the US, Britain, and France. This was a short pamphlet written in simple English called Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Written in 1776 John Adams said 'Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.'  Originally from Norfolk in Britain Paine emigrated to Philadelphia in 1774 where he soon became embroiled in the radical politics of the city's artisans. Paine was deeply inspired by liberalism and individualism writing that 'For were the impulses of conscious clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means of protection of the rest.' For a long time the British constitution was seen as being the best granting liberty to people in a world gripped by despotism. Paine disagreed. He viewed the only free and republican aspect of Britain was the parliament which he saw as being corrupted by the monarchy. 'For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever.' Paine argued that through the free market and an independent republic based on a broad franchise, annual assemblies, and a rotating presidency could people find liberty. Common Sense was immensely popular selling over 100,000 in 1776 alone and more people than that knew what was written inside; being written in vernacular English it could be read out in public for those unable to read it themselves. Paine would release future editions responding to critiques and his own views would later become more radical; he became a vocal deist and thanks to his critiques of Christianity only six individuals came to his funeral. Nevertheless, Paine offered the ideological backbone for what Gordon Wood would describe as 'The radicalism of the American Revolution'.

Lead up to Revolution

The Sons of Liberty tarring and feathering someone ignoring the boycott

In 1763 Britain had a deficit of £122 million which the new prime minister, George Grenville, opted to solve by taxing the colonies. If the Seven Years' War had been fought on behalf of the colonies why shouldn't they pay their dues? As this was happening we see the grievances over the Proclamation Line as well. Before 1764 the colonies had been lightly taxed: someone in Massachusetts on average paid a shilling in tax a year compared to a counterpart in Britain who paid twelve. In 1764 Grenville passed the first taxes but saw this as a way to formally establish authority over the lightly ruled colonies; a Royal Governor and local assembly governed each colony largely independent from Westminster. In March 1765 the Stamp Act was passed beginning the Stamp Act Crisis. This was a tax on anything with a stamp and this act also had anything published in the colonies to legally have a stamp on it. This covered everything from newspapers and legal documents to playing cards. Compared to the Sugar Tax from the year prior which regulated trade between the colonies and the rest of the empire it was seen as being illegal as it directly taxed the colonists. Although a light tax, the highest was £10 for attorney licenses, there was a fear acceptance of the Stamp Act would lead to heavy taxes and then entirely shifting the tax burden from Britain to the colonies. We also have the issue of 'No Taxation without Representation'. It was imposed by a body which the colonists had no say in despite Grenville saying they did through virtual representation. At the same time the Quartering Act was passed forcing colonists to house soldiers in their houses if needed which was seen as another tax. In 1765 the Sons of Liberty were formed among New York's labourers, sailors, and craftsmen, and soon similar groups emerged in Boston. In November 1765 a crowd made of sailors, youths, African-Americans, and labourers hurled stones at Fort George in Manhattan, and then destroyed the home of Major Thomas James, a British officer who threatened to force the stamps down the New Yorkers' throats. Virginia condemned the Act and in October 1765 27 delegates from nine colonies formed the Stamp Act Congress in New York to combat the Act. John Adams was seen as being the 'soul of the Congress'. They endorsed Virginia's position, agreed to act together, and vowed the boycott British goods. This was a breakthrough as the colonies started acting together instead of individually and none of the West Indian colonies turned up. As the Thirteen Colonies made up a third of British exports, enforcing the Stamp Act became difficult thanks to American protests, and the Stamp Act was unpopular in Britain as well in 1766 the new government started debating whether to repeal it. Benjamin Franklin even journeyed to London to criticise the Stamp Act. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but as they did they passed the Declaratory Act; this act confirmed that what London said went. Despite the warning colonists celebrated and the road to Revolution was on its way. Backing down over the Stamp Act showed that British power could be challenged. 

Paul Revere's Boston Massacre engraving

In 1767 the new prime minister, Charles Townshend, created a series of custom duties, called the Townshend Acts, on goods including glass, tea, and paper in order to pay American governors and judges. This affected merchants the hardest and as many merchants were concentrated in Massachusetts that colony became the focal point for resistance to the Townshend Acts. Unlike the earlier Stamp Act boycott the boycotts against the Townshend Acts were less successful due to them being levied on everyday items. One of the key texts illustrating colonial views were the Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson who published them in a Philadelphia newspaper between 1767 and 1768. Inspired by Enlightenment thought from figures like David Hume it called for Americans to hold the same rights as the British while reconciling with the mother country. Meanwhile, a grassroots and elite opposition to the Townshend Acts emerged where homemade goods were bought instead of British goods. The Sons of Liberty would tar-and-feather those who bought British goods and women got involved. The Daughters of Liberty organised social ostracising of those who continued to buy British goods and wove their own clothes to sell. The landowners and planters of the South, like George Washington, readily took up non-importation in order to pay off debts to British merchants (as well as encourage the sale of their own crops), and urban merchants were grateful for a drop in competition with British merchants. The heavy-handedness of the British in order to establish their authority aggravated the colonists. The navy seized a sloop called Liberty owned by Boston merchant John Hancock believing it was being used for smuggling. Hancock was well respected and riots broke out in 1768 causing soldiers to be stationed in Boston to enforce the law. Quickly Anglo-American relations soured. On March 5 1770 a protesting crowd, including a sailor of mixed Native American-black-white background called Crispus Attucks, started throwing snowballs at British troops. One was hit causing his weapon to discharge and, in turn, causing the other soldiers to fire into the crowd. Three were killed including Attucks who was later remembered as 'the first martyr of the American Revolution'. The commanding officer and eight soldiers were tried and defended strangely by John Adams who saw most of them acquitted. A local member of the Sons of Liberty, Paul Revere, stirred up opposition to the British by issuing a famous engraving print depicting the 'Boston Massacre' despite it being inaccurate. However, by 1770 the non-importation movement was declining as more and more of the elite couldn't do without British goods so a deal was drawn up: the boycott would end in return for removing troops from Boston and repealing all the taxes bar the one on tea. 

The Boston Tea Party

Throughout this time popular but radical journalist John Wilkes caused controversy in Britain and he gained popularity in America; the calls of 'Wilkes and Liberty' was a rallying cry across the Atlantic and for generations after people would name their children after him (including John Wilkes Booth). Meanwhile, the East India Company saw a dip in its stock so the government encouraged selling tea in America to reinvigorate it, and tea soon became widely drunk across all classes in Britain and America. Prime minister Lord North hoped to further reinvigorate sales by offering tax exemptions and rebates enabling it to dump cheap tea into America to undercut Dutch sales which ended up undercutting sales of established merchants and smugglers. Taxing the tea would then defray the costs of the colonial government threatening the assemblies' control over finance. Thus began the most famous protest of this period. On December 16 1773 a group of colonialists disguised as Native Americans boarded tea ships in Boston Harbor a threw 300 chests of tea costing £10,000 (£4 million in today's money). So popular was this that commemorative teapots were made! North was furious. The Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts in the colonies, decided to punish Massachusetts including closing Boston Harbor; restricted town meetings; issued in another Quartering Act; replaced the local government with a military one under Thomas Gage; and Gage imposed martial law. Around this time the earlier mentioned Quebec Act was also passed. In Philadelphia on September 1774 the First Continental Congress saw twelve of the thirteen colonies (Georgia did not attend) represented by political leaders including John Adams and his more radical cousin Samuel for Massachusetts and George Washington and Richard Henry Lee from Virginia. Here the path to independence was laid out with Lee giving a speech stating that 'The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.' He would later say a phrase now synonymous with the Revolution: Give me Liberty, or Give me Death! The Congress opted to lead a new boycott, prepare for a second Congress, transfer power to a new government in each colony, and send letters of invitation to the other colonies in North America. Instead on trying to base their rights on tradition they instead opted to base it on more abstract ideas based off of the Enlightenment. 

Creating Independence

In February 1775 Massachusetts was declared to be in a state of rebellion and troops were ordered to seize the arms of the local militias. This caused the now famous ride of Paul Revere warning the militia leading into the Battle of Lexington and Concord which Ralph Waldo Emmerson would later describe as 'the shot heard 'round the world'. This inspired other militias and armies to form and fight the British; May 1775 saw Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys joined with militia from Connecticut under Benedict Arnold to surround Fort Ticonderoga in New York as Henry Knox took some of the Ticonderoga cannon to help break the siege of Boston. On June 17 1775 the British fought the Americans at Breed's Hill but the battle has since been known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. Technically the British won with Sir William Howe even cutting down the original Liberty Tree but due to higher casualties and how it largely unaffected the colonists it was a hollow victory. Some have even suggested that it is more an American victory over a British one. As this was happening the Second Continental Congress convened with Georgia attending this time. However, a letter was sent to George III saying that they wanted reconciliation and blamed parliament, not him, for the division causing disdain from the radical Thomas Jefferson. Regardless the Congress raised an army and printed money to pay for it. John Adams got Washington to lead the army arguing that a southerner in charge would help bolster unity. Independence was not certain at this point but after debates and actions by the British (which we'll get to), and the publishing of Common Sense, it was decided that independence was their only choice.

The Continental Congress

On July 2 1776, not July 4, Congress formally declared independence and two days later the Declaration of Independence was issued. The Declaration remains a key focal point in the US to this day and is largely the child of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams - there were three other drafters including Franklin. The Declaration shows the radicalism of the Revolution and also its limits. Of course there is the most famous line: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. In a world when republics were rare and the ones in existence were more like monarchies the Declaration really was a radical document. Unlike the earlier Olive Branch Petition to George III the Declaration savages the monarch; as parliament was the democratic part of Britain they opted to not criticise parliament despite it issuing the hated taxes. However, it did have its limits. Jefferson was seen as getting too excited and added a criticism of slavery and the slave trade which the other drafters scrubbed out. In 1775 the royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation offering freedom to slaves if they fled their rebellious masters which caused the southern states to favour independence. Regardless the Declaration would, and still does, remain a key document in the Revolution before the creation of the Constitution.

The War of Independence

The rebels had to win their independence. The War of Independence, despite the popular image of it, was a brutal civil war. Historians are divided on whether Britain could have won; Francis Cogliano believes that they could have capitalised on their early advantages but made mistakes confirming their defeat whereas Hugh Brogan disagrees arguing that the British never really had a chance. Personally, I side more with Cogliano although Brogan is not inaccurate. Early on John Adams lamented that a third of the population were Patriots, a third were Loyalists, and a third were neutral; in reality it was largely two-fifths were Patriots (of which half actively fought), two-fifths were neutral, and a fifth were Loyalists. You may be wondering why there were Loyalists judging by the events of the 1760s and 1770s? There are no concrete reasons and Loyalists came from all walks of life. Naturally Dunmore's Proclamation encouraged slaves to join the British although more just opted to flee instead - Jefferson lost 10% of his slaves! Some feared the possible lawlessness and unleashing of liberty of the Revolution and others, (lawyers, Anglican ministers, merchants and officials), needed close ties with Britain for work. Religious and ethnic minorities, like Highland Scots in South Carolina, feared majoritarian repression if the rebels won. It is no exaggeration to say that at times the War of Independence was more like a civil war than a regular independence one. Loyalism and Patriotism shifted as well. Benedict Arnold is the most famous example of someone switching sides but it happened regularly. One British officer in Virginia commented that the town which welcomed then would be the first ones to shoot at them when the Patriots came. Also, neutrals who opted out of fighting for various reasons could suffer reprisals. For example, Quakers and Mennonites remained pacifist so saw their lands confiscated.

A depiction of a Hessian

As I mentioned in the post on the Seven Years' War I'm not a military historian so I won't go into too much detail on battles and why they were won/lost. As mentioned earlier despite Washington's skill the rebels were not certain of victory. Benedict Arnold's invasion of Canada in the winter of 1775 failed spectacularly thanks to the British forces and a smallpox outbreak decimating his forces. Washington himself was incredibly skilled lifting the siege of Boston in March 1776 causing General William Howe to head to New York hoping that there would be more Loyalists there. A force of 30,000 managed to take New York and the British would hold it until 1783. Britain also hired mercenaries from Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Hanau,Waldeck, and Brunswick, later referred to as 'Hessians', to fight for them. Throughout the war 30,000 Hessians fought for the British costing over £4.7 million. The British also built an alliance with Native Americans, largely the Iroquois, to fight for them as well. The rebel Continental Army faced defeat after defeat but Howe could never formally wipe out Washington's forces although he came close; initially Washington had 18,000 troops which dropped to 2,000 by winter. Underpaid, when paid at all, the rebels were further demoralised and the sheer amount of desertions caused Washington to have them publicly flogged. The rebels needed a victory or face the disintegration of their army. Washington's famous crossing the Delaware at night saved the remnants of the Continental Army  writing on December 18 'I think the game is pretty near up.' The heavy-handed treatment of Americans by the British and Hessians alienated the locals with plunder and rape happening regularly. Lord Rawdon wrote that 'A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being ravished, and...of consequence we have the most entertaining court-martial every day.' On Christmas night Washington crossed the Delaware again attacking the Hessian garrison at Trenton capturing nearly 1,000 followed by the defeat of a garrison at Princeton on January 3 1777. These quick victories boosted Patriot moral.

In 1777 the British hoped to splinter in half the rebel cause as General John Burgoyne invaded New England from Canada. At the same time Howe utilised the navy by loading 13,000 troops with their horses and supplies on July 23 and landing them just outside of Philadelphia. Congress fled and Washington's counterattack failed in September. However, the rebels got a reprieve when Burgoyne was defeated. Bogged down by the wilderness they had little support which evaporated when his Iroquois allies attacked local farms. One publicised incident flamed race relations when two Iroquois killed Jane McCrea, a young woman engaged to a Loyalist. Continental general Horatio Gates repeatedly fought Burgoyne finally defeating him at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777. This was an important turning point. Early on Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris to enlist French support going as far as to dress as a Quaker to appear as a bumbling countryman based on the stereotype Europeans had of Americans. France and other powers had been sending weapons to the rebels but Saratoga showed Europe that the rebels had a chance of winning. Despite being bankrupt Louis XVI declared war on Britain and joined the rebels followed by Spain in 1779 and the Netherlands in 1780. Spain never allied themselves with the rebels, they feared that this would encourage their own colonies to rebel. Entry of other powers shifted British attention. In 1778 65% of the British army was in North America which dropped to 29% in 1780. The Caribbean and Europe replaced America as the main area for combat with Britain diverting its navy and army to the mainland in fear of a Franco-Spanish invasion. 

The famous painting of Cornwallis' surrender

Despite victories rebel victory was still no certain. The Continental Army was struggling with moral and paying troops, some of Washington's commanders were useless, and Arnold switched sides in 1780. The Patriots won back Philadelphia in 1778 following the Battle of Monmouth Court House but only because Washington overrode his subordinate, Charles Lee, who called for a retreat. With the loss of Philadelphia the British moved to the South believing that there would be Loyalists there. In December 1778 Savannah fell bringing the Georgian coastline under British rule and a second invasion in 1780 saw Charleston fall. There were few Loyalists and the Patriots resorted to guerrilla warfare which crippled the British army. Under Cornwallis the British continued fighting to no avail so he ordered a retreat to Yorktown, Virginia hoping to be picked up by the Royal Navy in 1781. However, the Battle of Chesapeake saw the French navy destroying the British navy and Cornwallis was soon trapped. In October Cornwallis surrendered ending the fighting despite the British still occupying New York, Savannah and Charleston. The 1783 Treaty of Paris would end the war and see the Americans finally become independent.

African-Americans and Revolution

A later painting of Crispus Attucks

Throughout the colonial period slavery was a big issue in the colonies where some states, like Georgia, slaves made up a greater part of the population than people who were free. Some colonists described the British taxes as reverting them to slavery despite the fact many owned slaves themselves; this was not lost on commentators, the creator of the dictionary Samuel Johnson wrote 'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?' The drive for revolution were entwined with slavery and freedom. Earlier we mentioned Dunmore's Proclamation which caused the South to support independence but this started earlier in 1772. In Britain a slave, James Somerset, managed to win his freedom when a judge ruled that slavery went against English Common Law. A conspiracy emerged that this would lead to the end of slavery. Many of the revolutionaries, including Jefferson and Washington, held slaves so it was hard to reconcile equality of men and property rights when men were property. Some colonies saw the hypocrisy and started gradual emancipation where in 1774 Rhode Island and Connecticut forbade the slave trade; 1776 the Quakers forbade slavery; 1777 the Vermont Constitution banned slavery; and 1780 Pennsylvania adopted gradual emancipation as some examples. African-Americans also utilised the Revolution to end slavery. Between 1773 and 1775 five petitions using the rhetoric of the Revolution were made by Freemen to the Massachusetts government demanding emancipation. A slave would be the one to end slavery in Massachusetts though. Elizabeth Freeman was hit by her mistress in 1780 with a burning shovel and she went to lawyer Theodore Sedgewick saying this went against the new Bill of Rights. The lawsuit ended up ending slavery in Massachusetts. Despite Washington barring African-Americans from being in the Continental Army several colonies in the North allowed them to enlist. Slavery would, however, persist in the South. In Virginia when Patriots were chanting 'Liberty' nearby slaves chanted it as well causing the local police to shoot them. Here we see both the radicalism and limits of the Revolution: it managed to grant liberty but not to all.

Native Americans and Revolution

The Revolution greatly affected Native Americans. Some tribes sided with the British (like the Iroquois), others sided with the Patriots (like the Passamaquoddy), and others were divided. The Cherokee faced a split as the young sided with the British and elders sided with the Patriots. However, most tribes ended up siding with the British seeing them the lesser of two evils. After all the Declaration of Independence directly attacked the British seeking alliance with Native Americans. War lasted longer than 1775 and 1783 with the Native Americans. Lord Dunmore himself had been at war with the Shawnee and Mingos in the Ohio Valley which involved massacres of innocent people at the Yellow Creek Massacre. Smallpox is even believed to be used as a biological weapon during this war. Throughout the Revolutionary War Native Americans could be targeted, such as how Washington ordered that the Iroquois should not only be 'merely overrun but destroyed' in retaliation for their alliance with the British resulting in a civil war among the Iroquois. The famous scene in The Patriot where the British burn down a church with people inside did happen except it was Patriots burning down a church with ten Christian Native Americans inside. Fighting didn't end after the war. After 1783 the Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis, Chippewas, Ottawas, and Potawatomis formed an alliance called the Western Confederacy, (covertly armed by the British), to do as Pontiac did two decades earlier and resist Euro-American settlement. This continued conflict went badly for the newly formed USA with the Confederacy destroying American armies along the present border of Ohio and Indiana in 1790 and 1791. A Miami war chief, Little Turtle, and Shawnee, Blue Jacket, managed to defeat Arthur St. Clair so thoroughly that he saw 632 of his men dead and 264 wounded while Little Turtle just lost 66. To put it into perspective St. Clair lost lost three times more men than Custer did at the Battle of Little Bighorn. In 1795 the Western Confederacy was defeated and they lost their land. When the British invaded during the War of 1812 another pan-Indian confederacy fought the Americans again. These conflicts would be repeated across US expansion over the rest of the continent which would tragically end in genocide. 

Women

Abigail Adams

As shown earlier women were integral in enforcing support for the boycotts and they remained important throughout the Revolution and after. Some women even did enlist and fight but this was exceedingly rare. It was more common for women to be camp followers where they would follow the Continental Army and act as nurses, cooks, and cleaners in order to support the Revolution. African-American women also took part in this seeing the Revolution as a way to get racial and gender emancipation. Women were also used in propaganda either being portrayed as martyrs, like Jane McCrea, or supporting their husbands, brothers and fathers fighting. A well known poem of the Revolution is by sixteen year old Ruth Bryant from Massachusetts who in The American Maid's Choice saying that her ideal man was a valiant Patriot. As you can probably tell women's roles were seen as being linked to servitude and domesticity. Despite Abigail Adams telling John to 'remember the Ladies' they were often sidelined or forced into the home. Following the Revolution the patriarchal society ideas of Republican Motherhood were stressed. This idea was that the new republic had to have a new generation be taught about the virtues of being republicans, and it was women's roles to teach this new generation. They had to keep their husbands on the straight and narrow, teach their children to read and have lots of children in order to benefit the future generations, (if you see a parallel with The Handmaid's Tale there is a reason why). Despite the reinforcing of traditional roles it did allow a reinforcement of educating women as well as men which would allow women to capitalise on this later. Women, just like African-Americans, used the language of the Revolution to critique their role in society and some even exploited a loophole in New Jersey. The 1776 Constitution was worded in a way which said that 'all inhabitants' who owned property could vote. Widowed and unmarried women used this to vote for but unfortunately by 1807 they had changed the law to exclude women. Nevertheless, the Revolution inspired women and it is no mistake that Susan B. Anthony would later use the language to critique sexism and slavery.

Constitution and Aftermath

The Treaty of Paris gave the colonies their independence, Florida to Spain, and land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi to the new republic. The reason for this was because Britain wanted to stop French expansion and they thought the new republic would collapse returning the land to them. The US was on a shaky start: bankrupt, no allies, little legitimacy, and the British still occupied forts until 1795 supplying the Western Confederacy. Debates over an American Constitution split the political elite. The people were also disappointed. John Adams in 1776 wrote: We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government elsewhere. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient - that schools and colleges were growing turbulent - that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters... There will be no End of it. New Claims will arise. Women will demand a Vote. Lads from 12 to 21 will think their Rights not enough attended to...It tends to confound and destroy all Distinctions, and prostrate all Ranks, to one common Levell.' In 1786 farmers hit hard by debt under Daniel Shay rose up in Massachusetts demanding an end to their debts and a government elected directly. In response Boston raised an army putting down the rebellion. Washington supported the crushing of it while Jefferson sided with the rebels. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 tried to form a Constitution and as Washington took part this gave it legitimacy. There were conflicting debates over the Constitution and despite Washington's opposition to it partisanship emerged. On one side represented by figures like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were the Federalists who supported a federal republic against the Anti-Federalists, (also called the Democrats, Republicans and Democratic-Republicans), who opposed this including Thomas Jefferson. In private Washington sided with the Federalists. The drafters of the Constitution wanted representation but not democracy seeing it as mob rule. Hence, why now the president decides the Supreme Court judges and the Electoral College exists - the College initially was meant to be made of people who knew politics so could decide if the public voted the right way. Slavery was also an issue. Slave states wanted slaves to be counted as it would give them greater representation while non-slave states opposed this. The 3/5 Compromise emerged as a result: three out of every five slaves would be counted in a state's representation. The ease the minds of Anti-Federalists a Bill of Rights was drafted which exists to this day. Eventually the Constitution was ratified and in 1789 Washington became the USA's first president.

Conclusion

The veneration of the Revolution: on Washington's death this was painted showing him being guided to Heaven by angels as Lady Liberty and a Native American woman weeps

The American Revolution has since been very influential with it continuing to shape the US to this day. However, the limitations of the new Constitution meant that it has since been amended various times, including abolishing slavery, banning alcohol and bringing it back, and granting women the right to vote. We have to think though: how radical was the Revolution? Gordon Wood has insisted that it is in fact radical - the ideas of equality, republicanism and property rights being legally protected in a state's constitution was radical for the time. Some thinkers even started advocating shared for communal property rights in a precursor to Marx. Although it did exclude African-Americans, women and other groups it did start a precedent for future emancipation. The secular aspects also allowed emancipation of all Christian denominations, and even Jews, which caused America to see a greater amount of Church goers than their European counterparts. However, it certainly was limited. Initially revolutions in France, Haiti, and Latin America were welcomed but they quickly soured (especially with Haiti). Thomas Paine was seen as a radical for his deism, increased calls for equality, and possible abolitionism but when he went to France he was seen as a moderate. Paine would become critical of Washington, (although that may be due to the president letting him rot in a French prison), abolitionists in the 1840s would condemn the Constitution for allowing slavery, and anarchists in the 1880s/90s would call themselves 'unrepentant Jeffersonians'. The legacy of the American Revolution really depends on whether you place ideas over actions or vice versa.

Thank you for reading. The next few World History posts will be looking at the 'Age of Revolution' and we'll be focusing next on the French Revolution. For other World History posts please see our list, and for future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, (New York, NY, Alfred K. Knopf: 1992)

-Thomas Paine, Common Sense, (London, Penguin Books: 1776, Penguin edition 1986)

-The Declaration of Independence and US Constitution

-Lance Banning, 'Republican Ideology and the Triumph of the Constitution, 1789-1793', William and Mary Quarterly, 31:2, (1974), 167-88

-Colin Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities, (New York, NY: 1995)

-Hugh Brogan, The Penguin History of the USA, Second Edition, (London, Penguin Books: 1999)

-Eric Foner, Give me Liberty! An American History, Fourth Edition, (New York, NY, W.W. Norton: 2014)

-Francis Cogliano, Revolutionary America, 1763-1815: A Political History, Second Edition, (New York, NY, Routledge: 2009)

-Alan Taylor, American Revolutions, (New York, NY, W.W. Norton: 2016)