History: Slave or free states?

         In the 19th century, the southern states are very rural and determined to keep slavery whereas the north is industrial and so becomes more and more opposed to it. The difference is huge between the Free states where slavery is abolished and the Slave States were it still be legal. 

The new question is: « Should the new states have the right to legalize slavery or not? »

In 1920, the Missouri compromise prohibits slavery in the West and north of Missouri but permits it within it and in the Arkansas. 

In the constitution, the problem of Slavery is a very delicate one and we can feel it in two important clauses:

• The « fugitive slave clause » prohibits citizens to help fugitive slaves, and explains that fugitive slaves must be returned to their masters.
• The « tree fifths compromise » indicates that a slave represents only 3/5th (60%) of a white man.

Democrat & Republican logos

        The Wing party wins the presidential elections of 1852 but then, some of its leaders decid to quit politic, so a new party is created: the Republican party. This one loses the elections of 1856 but the popular vote it obtains is encouraging. There are two political parties at the time, Republicans are mostly abolitionists from the north and Democrats are pro-slavery idealists from the south. Tensions between both are very high. 

        In 1857, the Supreme Court takes a very important decision called « Dred Scott decision ». Dred Scott was a slave who had been taken to a free state by his master, he was attending freedom but the Court rejected his demand by a 7-2 majority. The Court decided that all black people slaves or free were not protected by the US constitution and could absolutely not become citizens of the united States of America. It is also said that Slavery was authorized in every state. For the abolitionists, this unconstitutional decision is unacceptable and means that nothing good can come from the Supreme Court. The tensions get higher and the two parties became irreconciliable.

       In this context, the 1860 presidential elections are very dangerous for the future of the country. The Democratic party splits into two different sections, one supporting Stephen Douglas, and the other supporting John Beckinridge. The Republican party is represented by Abraham Lincoln. Slavery is the main issue of the campaign, the southerners know that if Lincoln was elected, he would encourage the abolition of slavery, this is why the south threatens to succeed from the Union in case of his victory. 

      Abraham Lincoln win the election, that provokes the secession of 11 southerns states. They create a new country called the Confederacy, and choose their own rules about slavery. This growing opposition between the two leeds to the American Civil War..

Source: M. Grenet, Profesor of "History of the United States of America"

Movies : "12 Years a Slave" and "Selma".

We would like to show a simple overview of the evolution of the Black American people rights from slavery to the current situation. We drew inspiration from importants films about this topic : 

12 Years a Slave and Selma.

Last year, the best film by the Oscar Academy was 12 Years a Slave, and his director Steve McQueen one the most awarded in the international cinema festivals. He is today, perhaps with Sidney Poitiers, the most important Black American cinema director. Based on the unbelievable real facts, this is the history of a Black American person struggling for his existence and liberty. Before the Civil War of the United States, Solomon Northup, a free Black American person from New York, is captured and sold into slavery. Salomon is led to the South and fighting against the brutality of a terrible slave proprietor. He struggles to survive besides to preserve his dignity. His awful hell lasted twelve years until the Solomon's life changes when an old Canadian abolitionist friend appears.

It is not a coincidence that in the current Oscar awards 2015 we have a terrific film, Selma, about Martin Luther King, the US president Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights marches that changed America at the sixties. Selma is the impressive memories of the riotous three-month epoch in 1965, when Martin Luther King led a risky movement to achieve the same polling rights for Black American people in front of a violent opposition. The heroic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965, concluded in President Johnson accepting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is one of the most substantial triumphs for the civil rights activism. Selma is the memoir in what way the well-regarded leader Martin Luther King and his colleagues in the movement impelled change that forever transformed history. And it is not a coincidence because it seems that there is an idea of culpability in the collectivistic American conscience for his dreadful past. Today, acknowledging historic calamities as the histories of the films Selma, 12 Years a Slave or The Help, American people are asking forgiveness and they are reconciling with the Black Society.

Culture : Soul food

Soul food is a term used for an ethnic cuisine. Food traditionnally prepared and eaten by Afrian Americans of the Southern United States. Many of the various dishes and ingredients included in "soul food" are also regional meals and comprise a part of other Southern US cooking, as well. 

The style of cooking takes its origins from American slavery. African slaves were given only the "leftover" and "undesirable" cuts of meat from their masters (while the white slave owners got the meatiest cuts of ham, roasts, etc). They also had only vegetables grown for ourselves. 

After slavery, many, being poor, could afford only off-cuts of meat, along with offal. Farming, hunting and fishing provided fresh vegetables, fish and wild game, such as possum, rabbit, squirrel and sometimes waterfowl. Africans living in America at the time (and since) made with the food choices they had to work with.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_food

The beginning of Slavery.

In 1619, the first 20 Africans arrived on a Dutch boat in Jamestown, a slave trader exchanged them for food. The price tag for an African male was around $27, while the salary of a European laborer was about seventy cents per day. The English settlers treated these captives as indentured servants... The difficulty in using any other group of people as forced servants, led to the relegation of Blacks into slavery. In all, about 10–12 million Africans were transported to the Western Hemisphere. 

Massachusetts was the first colony to legalize slavery in 1641. Other colonies followed suit by passing laws that passed slavery on to the children of slaves. By 1700 there were 25,000 slaves in the American colonies, about 10% of the population. The great majority of slaves lived on southern tobacco or rice plantations. 

Daily life for a slave was incredibly difficult. They worked from sunrise until sunset. Even small children and the elderly were not exempt from these long work hours. They were generally allowed a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July. The diet supplied by slaveholders was generally poor, they rarely had fish or meat and slaves often supplemented it by tending small plots of land or fishing. Many slave owners did not provide adequate clothing either, many slaves only wore rags so slave mothers often worked to clothe their families at night after long days of labor. Shelter provided by slave owners was also meager: many slaves lived in small stick houses with dirt floors, these shelters had cracks in the walls that let in cold and wind, and had only thin coverings over the windows. Again, slave owners supplied only the minimum needed for survival; they were primarily concerned with keeping their financially valuable slaves alive and working rather than providing for their comfort, health, or safety.

However, slave owners usually allowed slaves to marry, because any children from the marriage would add to their wealth. According to law, a child took on the legal status of its mother; a child born to a slave mother would in turn become a slave, even if the father was free. But masters could break up marriages and separate families as they wished… The slave separated countless husbands, wives, parents and children. Slaveholders cared little about the kindred bonds of slaves, and tore families apart by selling slaves for profit.

In the Northern states, the revolutionary spirit did help African Americans. Beginning in the 1750s, there was widespread sentiment during the American Revolution that slavery was a social evil (for the country as a whole and for the whites) that should eventually be abolished...

Source : 
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtimeline.html
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-antebellum/5602

Introduction : American History Timeline

We recommend you to have a look at this web page. It is interesting to have a general view of the most important events of the American History.

A short video about slavery

A quick look throught a video about slavery!

Presentation

Hello!
We are six students of Translation and Interpretation at the University Pablo de Olavide of Seville.
Our aim is to push you into the extraordinary Black American world by publishing several articles about the History of Black Americans from the beginning to nowadays and other various issues like soul, food, arts, music... In order to do it, we will use several documents: movies, pictures...
We hope you'll enjoy it! ;)