Episodes tagged "Slavery": 21 through 30 of 523
- Slave Sarah Frances Shaw Graves Recalls an Unjust Whipping
1860
NODAWAY, Missouri
African-Americans, Slavery, WomenSarah Frances Shaw Graves was born a slave in Missouri. She was interviewed in her later years as a part of the slave narratives taken when she was free. One story she related was of a Sunday when she attended a wedding for her master’s kinfolks. The bride walked into the church and someone kicked dust onto the bride’s dress, but it was not Graves. She, however, got blamed for it and the master’s...
- California Opposes Slavery on Grounds of Social Idleness
May 12, 1848 to September 20, 1850
TERRITORY, Territory
Politics, Slavery, GovernmentBy the late 1840s American feelings on slavery smoldered. According to historian James McPherson, the southern states were pushing for a pro-slavery constitution in California, and western slavery not just as an abstraction, but as a legitimate southern goal. As the debate raged in congress over the admittance of California as a free or slave state, the Californians in San Francisco had all but...
- Escape through Death: The Story of Fugitive Margaret Garner
January 27, 1856 to January 28, 1856
HAMILTON, Ohio
Law, Women, Slavery, african americansDeemed “a tale of horror” by The Cincinnati Enquirer, Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave, took the life of her child in order to save her from a life of slavery. This is the story that Cincinnati woke up to on the morning of January 29, 1856. Two nights earlier, sixteen slaves had escaped from Kentucky into Ohio, eight of whom included Garner and her family. According to The Cincinnati Enquirer,...
- Ambush in the Darkness of the Sam Gaty
April 4, 1863
JACKSON, Missouri
Irregular Warfare, Civil War, Crime/Violence, SlaveryApril 4th 1863 at two in the morning the steamboat Sam Gaty stopped on the Independence River at Sibley and was ambushed by band of bushwhackers, that killed fifteen “contrabands” and two other whites. There was a resentment at the Union for the acceptance of the escaped slaves, whom some had been undertaken as labor to the Union forces. "Contraband" described former escaped slaves...
- Horrible experiences slaves endure in the 1800's
February 6, 1839
WASHINGTON, Virginia
Slavery, Slave Living ConditionsThe experience of slavery for men, women, and children was equally horrible. The amount of labor on the plantation farms was the same for both genders. The differences between the genders were the jobs appointed to them. Men were usually appointed jobs that included certain skill like carpentry and blacksmith. Women were usually working in the fields or as house servants. Accordening to Hallam, “For...
- The Freedmen’s Record Reports on the Prosperity of Freedmen
October, 1865 to 1865
SUFFOLK, Massachusetts
African-Americans, Economy, Race-Relations, SlaveryAccording to the Freedmen’s Record report, many southerners perceived freedmen as “a hopelessly lazy, sensual creature who, if he has enough to satisfy the lowest animal wants, will be content.” They feared that freedmen would resort to theft instead of working to fulfill their needs. The Record attempted to change these perceptions by exposing the tremendous success of freed African Americans...
- Polite Letters from the South: The South Reacts to Garrison's The Liberator
January 1, 1831 to February 15, 1839
SUFFOLK, Massachusetts
Anti-slavery, Slavery, Abolition“You son of a bitch: If you ever send such papers here again, we will come and give you a good Lynching…” wrote the Lynch Club of Charleston, South Carolina, to newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison, “So you had better keep them at home.” This was one of two letters that Garrison published in his paper, The Liberator, on February 15, 1839, sarcastically titled, “Polite Letters from...
- Reverend Tyng Speaks Out Against Southern Hostility
June 29, 1856
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania
Church/Religious-Activity, SlaveryPreaching to his Philadelphia congregation, Reverend Dudley A. Tyng spoke out against the violent acts committed by Southerners in attempts to have Kansas admitted to the Union as a slave state. “The blood of a Senator has stained the floor of the Senate Chamber,” said Tyng in his June 29, 1856, sermon, and “the blood of her citizens has been poured out like water on the virgin soil of Kansas,...
- This episode discusses is a specific event that occurred due to the establishment of the Fugitive Slave Laws in the 1850s called the Jerry Rescue.
October 1, 1851
OSWEGO, New York
Jerry Rescue, Fugitive Slave Law, SlaveryWilliam “Jerry” Henry was a Missouri slave during this time period. He grew tired of the brutality and sought freedom in the north. He successfully escaped from Missouri and went to Syracuse, New York, which was a popular immigration city. He lived and worked in the city for a while, but in October 1852, U.S. Marshal Allen arrested him. The officer tricked him into cooperating by saying he was...
- Journey in the Seaboard Slave States
1856
RICHMOND, Virginia
Slavery, Slave Trade, Slave States"Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils," Olmstead quoted this from Benjamin Franklin. In 1856, an Englishman, Frederick Law Olmstead, wrote A journey in the seaboard slave states. It is about his long journey in the seaboard slave states of Virginia, North Carolina,...
rss feed