In this photograph, a formerly enslaved man named Gordon reveals the scars on his back from being whipped. The famous image helped white people grasp the brutality of slavery. After escaping slavery, Gordon fought for the Union Army in the Civil War.

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STANDARDS

Common Core: RH.6-8.1, RH.6-8.2, RH.6-8.3, RH.6-8.4, RH.6-8.5, RH.6-8.7, RH.6-8.9, WHST.6-8.2, WHST.6-8.7, WHST.6-8.9, RI.6-8.1, RI.6-8.3, RI.6-8.4, RI.6-8.5, RI.6-8.10, SL.6-8.1, SL.6-8.4

NCSS: Time, Continuity, and Change • Individuals, Groups, and Institutions • Power, Authority, and Governance • Production, Distribution, and Consumption

SPOTLIGHT

Six Truths About Slavery

Four hundred years after enslaved Africans were first brought to Virginia, many people still don’t fully understand our country’s slavery history. Here are six key truths all Americans should know.

December 9, 2019

By the Editors of Junior Scholastic

In August 1619, a ship docked in Virginia and changed the course of history. On board were 20 to 30 people who’d been ripped from their homes in southwestern Africa and forced to make the dangerous journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Once they arrived, they were sold to white colonists and likely put to work in tobacco fields.

Many historians point to that moment 400 years ago as one of the most significant in history. It was the beginning of African slavery in the English colonies that would later become the United States.

In the centuries that followed, 12.5 million African men, women, and children were kidnapped, locked in heavy iron chains, and packed onto ships headed to the New World. About 2 million of them died during the journey. Those who survived the voyage—and their descendants—were forced to work day and night in fields and in homes owned by white people who routinely beat, tortured, and murdered them.

This brutal system of forced labor helped fuel the growth of the U.S. into one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Even today, the racist beliefs and policies that slavery was built upon continue to affect nearly every aspect of our society, from where we live to which schools young people attend.

Yet many people don’t know the real story of slavery. Over time, Americans have downplayed, misrepresented, or ignored key facts about this part of history. Even textbooks sometimes get things very wrong.

Here are six things you should know.

All enslaved people were mistreated.

Slavery was a racist and cruel institution that denied black people human rights and freedom. To keep enslaved people from rebelling and to break their spirits, their enslavers tortured them physically and emotionally.

Many enslaved people were savagely whipped, beaten, and shackled—sometimes daily. They lived in fear that their children and parents could be taken from them at any moment and sold or given away as gifts. They were forced to do backbreaking labor for no pay and were denied the right to move freely, assemble in groups, and learn to read and write.

In the face of such brutal treatment—and often hoping to reunite with their families—many enslaved people tried to run away. Attempting to escape was extremely risky. Enslavers often ran ads in newspapers offering rewards for the return of fugitives. Countless enslaved people who tried to flee were caught, beaten, and returned to bondage.

Yet about 100,000 enslaved people made it to freedom. Many fled to Canada or joined black communities in swamps and other isolated areas. On rare occasions, some enslaved people were able to buy their freedom.

Enslaved people often fought back.

Kenneth Calvert

Some black people challenged slavery by secretly learning to read and write.

Even while packed onto ships headed to the New World, enslaved Africans rebelled. With each act of resistance, enslavers became increasingly fearful. So they enacted harsher punishments and placed stricter limits on what enslaved people could do. Still, for the next 250 years, black people vigorously fought for their freedom and to abolish slavery in America.

Many enslaved people resisted in secret—for example, by learning to read and write. Some destroyed crops to sabotage their captors or stepped in to raise children whose parents had been sold. Others took their cases to court, where they fought for their freedom—and to end slavery. Some who escaped gave speeches and wrote books about their experiences to help white people understand the horrors of slavery. And some went on to became conductors on the Underground Railroad.

Some even took part in armed rebellions. In 1831, for example, about 70 enslaved and free black people, led by an enslaved preacher named Nat Turner, revolted in Virginia. They freed a number of enslaved people and killed nearly 60 white people in the process. Local white people then killed hundreds of enslaved people as revenge.

“Enslaved people always resisted—in ways that are both seen and unseen,” says Hasan Kwame Jeffries, a history professor at Ohio State University.

Slavery fueled the growth of the United States.

Americans often think of slavery as a “Southern thing” that benefited only plantation owners. But it existed in the North as well. And it greatly contributed to the growth and prosperity of the entire nation.

In the North, enslaved people were forced to lay railroad tracks; work as blacksmiths and shoemakers; and build homes, bridges, and factories. In 1703, 42 percent of New York households enslaved black people. By 1804, all Northern states had passed laws to abolish slavery—though some of those measures didn’t take effect until decades later.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy was increasingly dependent on slave labor, which in turn fueled slavery’s growth in the South.

The system of slavery created whole industries and wealth for many white people nationwide. For example, banks in New York gave loans to plantation owners in Southern states. Cotton grown and picked by enslaved people was sent to textile factories in New England. And Northern shipping companies grew rich by transporting that cotton from one state to another and abroad.

Slavery was the main cause of the Civil War.

Many students today are taught that the Civil War (1861-65) wasn’t fought primarily over slavery but over the issue of states’ rights. (States’ rights means the right of states to follow their own rules, apart from those set by the federal government.) Yet the right that Southern states most wanted to protect was the ability of their citizens to own black people as slaves.

Just one month after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede, or withdraw, from the nation. Lincoln was opposed to the growth of slavery. South Carolina lawmakers, many of whom had become rich by relying on slave labor, feared he might outlaw it. Other Southern states soon followed South Carolina’s lead, citing slavery as their main reason for leaving the Union.

However, over time, many white people in the South began to say that the war had not been about slavery but about states’ rights. That false claim is still commonly made today to minimize the role slavery played in the war.

Abraham Lincoln didn’t end slavery.

MPI/Getty Images

About 180,000 black soldiers fought in the Union Army. Many of them had escaped slavery.

Less than two years into the war, the number of white people volunteering to join the Union Army was declining. Yet many free and formerly enslaved black people were eager to fight for the North, knowing that a Union victory likely meant an end to slavery.

In fact, thousands of enslaved people had already deserted the Confederacy and fled to Union-controlled areas to help with the war effort. Many became spies or scouts—even though they were barred from joining the military.

Then, in 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared free the 3.5 million enslaved people in states that had withdrawn from the U.S.—and allowed them to officially join the Union Army.

Experts say Lincoln’s move was not driven by a desire to end slavery. Instead, the Proclamation was meant to help the North win the war—by strengthening the Union Army and weakening the South’s economy. The measure didn’t free any of the 500,000 enslaved people in states that hadn’t left the Union. And it was rarely enforced in the Confederacy, where officials no longer considered Lincoln their president.

It wasn’t until passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865 that slavery was officially abolished in the U.S. However, the amendment didn’t protect black people from violence or discrimination. They continued to be treated like second-class citizens, including being denied the right to vote.

Slavery and its aftermath continue to affect the U.S.

Max Herman/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Young people protest racist American policing practices in 2016.

Many Americans think of slavery as something that happened in the past—and that it has little effect on the present. That’s simply not true, say experts.

After the Civil War, for example, formerly enslaved people pushed for passage of the 14th Amendment, which ensures citizenship to everyone born in the U.S. and guarantees “equal protection of the laws.” Over the years, that amendment has been used by women, immigrants, same-sex couples, and other groups to fight for equality.

However, the racism slavery was built upon still affects Americans today. For example, white people—both directly and indirectly—have long prevented African Americans from buying homes in certain areas and sending their children to schools there. Many people don’t realize that such practices still affect the racial makeup of communities and classrooms nationwide, as well as the distribution of resources.

Our criminal justice system is also plagued by racism. Research shows that for similar offenses, black people today are more likely than white people to be arrested, found guilty, and given longer sentences.

In the end, historians say, knowing the truth about slavery and its lasting effects on the nation helps us make sense of the present.

“If you don’t understand slavery and its central role in America’s formation, then you really can’t understand the American past,” says Jeffries. “If you can’t understand America’s past, you can’t understand America’s present.”