This week's Henretta reading (chapter 9) begins by describing how slavery was becoming a much bigger issue in America at this point. While the North largely had hopes that slavery would start to decline and die out as tobacco and slave trading became less profitable, the South had a massive boom of cotton business and the demand for slaves sky-rocketed. The South also integrated slavery into their public image, as southern aristocratic republicans were usually big slave-owners. As some Northerners such as President Monroe and Henry Clay tried to turn the tide and free slaves, the American Colonization Society was formed to emancipate slaves and get them back to Africa. This organization didn't work out, however, because even after arguing about how slavery is immoral, unreligious, and that many aristocrats were rich enough to free their slaves anyway, few people freed any slaves, and the organization could only buy the freedom of so many.
The view of the organization was that slavery would end up making America lack advancement and lack respect for fellow men and races. They also feared that only freeing the slaves would create even more problems because then America would have racial war and discrimination with the freed slaves still around.
Was this idea of freeing the slaves and getting them back to Africa a good idea? Was it realistic? What do you think would've happened if the South had freed their slaves, and this organization tried to get most of them back to Africa? Would it have prevented or changed anything for the future?
Also, what do you think the slaves would have wanted most?
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We talked about this is discussion, but I think the idea of sending all of the slaves back to Africa was completely unrealistic. It was just a way of avoiding the problem the United States had created for themselves.
In lecture, professor Weber discussed how only 150,000 to 200,000 people were involved in abolitionist groups during this time. This was such a low percentage of people during this time that no dramatic changes would come about until more people became involved. Yet, I believe that a number of Northerners still believed they could profit off of slavery. It was stated in the book that because there was a ban in the slave trade, that southern land owners would pay high prices for each slave. So, those Northerner's would not just free their slaves, rather they would sell these slaves to the southern plantation owners in order to turn a profit. In addition, this would reduce the slave population in the North even further.
I don't think the idea of sending all of the slaves back to africa was a good idea. Sure, it may have freed the slaves but it was very unrealistic. The slaves would not have survived in Africa. Plus they weren't "Africans" they were Americans. Most of them were born in America and I think that is probably where most of them wanted to stay.
The attempt to send freed African Americans to Africa was obviously a stretch. The newly freed slaves would likely protest the idea of sending them to a far more unfamiliar place than America. By now, most slaves were born right here in America, completely disconnected from Africa, so sending slaves back there would have little sense.
As far as changing the future, I'm sure it would have changed an awful lot. If all of these freed slaves were forced out of the country, however unlikely it may be, then that would be a loss of many generations of African Americans that influence this country.
The tabacoo and slave trade industries had started to decline long before the invention of the cotton gin yet the slave industry grew. This doesn't make any sense since it wasn't profitable and no one had any clue it would ever be profitable again. Why did plantation owners hold on to their slaves when they were losing so much money when they could have sold them? It's not like the slaves were becoming more valuable the longer you kept them.
It was not the best idea for all slaves to be sent back to Africa because not all slaves were from Africa so that idea wasn't very realistic. If the south would have freed their slaves it would have crippled the economy which was obviously a major down side. The slaves did not want to be seperated or sent away because they had already created their own communities.
The idea of getting slaves back to Africa wasn't very realistic. After this much time in slavery in America, becoming so used to the slave enviormnet how would they provide for themselves. Also i find it interesting that many of the white Americans with slaves who were looking to get rid of their slaves decided to sell the slaves. I thought the idea was to free the slaves?
The idea of sending the slaves back to Africa was a bad one for many reasons. As we mentioned in discussion, many of the slaves had lived in the United States for generations. They no longer shared a strong identity with African culture as they had been removed for many years. They would have also been met with hostility upon arriving in Africa as it was already populated, not that that seemed to be that big of an issue to early Americans as seen with the existing population in America.
Sending all the slaves back to Aftrica would have been very devistating decision. It woud have been very expensive to transport them all across the ocean. Plus the food and materials that wold have to be supplied to keep them alive wold be very expensive. Not only expenses but organizing the way of transportaion and gathering all of them would be a great hassl.
I think the lack of support for abolition can easily be paralled to the lack of support for opening our southern boarder and passing Amnesty legislation.
The two major facotrs include money, and fear.
Those who were opposed to slavery and weren't abolistionist were afriad of Southern retaliation...which obviously happens just a short while later...and they were afraid of the consequences it may have on the culture of the country, not to mention just because they didn't believe in slavery doesn't mean they thought of African Americans as people of stature.
The other is money. What would something like that cost the country in monetary loss? Well, to be frank, at the time I'm sure it looked like a huge amount. This would be a loss in the number of paying jobs, higher agricultural costs making cotton a horrible choice, and increased tension that may lead to property loss and terrible credit (which is really just starting to take off in the United States as an industry).
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