From: Clayton Slook
Date: 4/12/00
Time: 12:50:00 AM
Remote Name: 155.247.152.51
Clayton Slook
History 67 week 12 The African Americans had a very difficult time living in the south during the times leading up to the Civil War time. Most of the slaves of this time worked on the plantations and lived in housing provided by their masters. The plantation owners provided the slaves with their clothes, food, and most of the other essentials. The plantation owners were very concerned with keeping their authority over all the slaves. If the plantation owners did not have a tight control over the slaves there was a possibility that the slaves would rebel at the first sight of weakness. There were many more slaves on the plantations than there were whites to keep them in line so the whites needed to keep a psychological and physical upper hand over the slaves. The plantation owners and white workers needed to keep a principle of fear in the slaves by using certain methods such as, whipping and threatening to sell them away from their family and friends. The plantation owners had a complete control over their slaves and could do whatever they wanted including, torturing, killing, raping slave woman, whipping, beating them because they had little legal protection. There were some times that slaves did come together and act against the whites to try to gain their liberty for example; in 1800, Gabriel Prosser mobilized a large group of slaves to march on Richmond Virginia. The slaves were quickly dispersed and there was almost no gain from the efforts. Later there was an upraise in New Orleans where the slaves were carrying guns and needed to be stopped by three hundred soldiers and armed slave holders. There were other times that the slaves planned to take actions but their plans were foiled before they were implemented. Wherever the free slaves lived, they were looked at as social outcasts and had many different troubles. All “free Negroes” were denied legal and political equality that the whites had. They also had a lot of trouble finding jobs because most jobs for unskilled labor were given to the immigrants or other whites instead of blacks. Many states would not allow blacks to hold jobs at schools, post offices, serving in the militia, laying claim to public land, gain a passport, or even gain American citizenship. “Free Negros” needed to carry their papers that prove their free status. The authorities stopped attempts for blacks to form groups or organizations. Free blacks were frequently taken back to slavery if they could not prove that they were free. If the free blacks did find a job somewhere it was hard to find a job that paid enough to support a comfortable existence. Many times they would not have any patronage because the whites refused to support a black run business. The Mexican War has a large influence on the expansion of slavery in the West. Mexico had outlawed slavery in the area of Texas and the territory of California. When the war was won, slavery became legal in the Texas. Slavery automatically became legal because all the Americans that had lived in the area before the war had slaves already. There was no court ruling deciding if it was a slave state or not. California and New Mexico were acquired later and Congress realized that they had the power to declare these new territories as slave free territories. These territories were located primarily under the Missouri Compromise line, which divides the southern slave states and the Northern Slave free states. This movement by the Congress caused a big controversy between the North and the South.