Preview

Slavery And The Making Of America

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1403 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Slavery And The Making Of America
Erin Benner

US History 1

Husson University

23 November 14

Slavery and The Making Of America

Have you ever thought about the explicit details that went into the creation of America? Slavery and the Making of America, written by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton uses facts and stories to portray the life of slaves, and the evolution of slavery over several decades, and its effect on America today. The title of this book, Slavery and the Making of America is a great leeway into the authors’ main thesis of the book; “Slavery was, and continues to be, a critical factor in shaping the United States and all of its people. As Americans, we must understand slavery’s history if we are ever to be emancipated from its consequences,” (Horton). Throughout the six chapters in this book, the authors’ go into explicit details on what actions from both white Americans and African slaves led to the Civil War, the abolition of slavery and America as it is today. Slavery and the Making of America is a book split into 6 chapters. The book starts off by explaining history about African slaves, and their bringing to America. Africans’ were kept as slaves in the United States for at least twelve generations. Slavery was one of the main components that led to the building of America. Well-endowed white men would buy slaves to work on their plantations. Slaves eventually created a basis for America’s wealth as a nation, especially with their labor put towards farming cotton.
This book not only goes into details about the labor that the slaves partook in on a daily basis that kept America up and running, but also about the cultural aspect of bring slaves into the country. Bringing African’s over to America brought a whole new culture to America. Although white men enslaved African’s they continued to embrace their culture. They brought a new religion, language, music, and several skills that have uniquely blended the American culture that it is today.
This book



Cited: Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. Slavery and the Making of America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print. "Slavery and the Making of America." PBS. PBS, 1 Jan. 2004. Web. 24 Nov. 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/index.html>.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Slavery Dbq

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In a period of 55 years, from 1775 to 1830, many African American slaves in the United States gained their freedom, while in other parts of the US slaves were rapidly increasing, faster than ever seen before. The reason for the simultaneous increase and decrease of slaver lies in the African Americans’ involvement in early American wars, the decisions of certain slave owners, and the spirit of equality among slaves and freemen alike. The cause of an expansion of slavery is due to the rapid growth of our country, as well as the sense of duty among slaves.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Wahl, J. B. (2010, February 1). Slavery in the United States. Retrieved September 4, 2010, from EH.net: http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/wahl.slavery.us…

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Throughout history, slavery has been a shameful blot in the morality of humanity. This heinous act has been outlawed everywhere on the earth but as Ronald Reagan once said: “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” (Reagan 12). It is of utmost importance to research how dreadful slavery was, giving each American the knowledge to prevent it from ever being put into legal practice again (Reid 3). Through the use of primary sources related to slavery and those affected by it, an in-depth message will be developed as an educational tool to be sure that slavery is an institute that will never be considered acceptable in the United States.…

    • 1208 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slave Country Book Review

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Slave Country, is a book on early America and it tells the story of the rapid growth of slavery in the newly formed states. Slavery slowly disappeared from the northern states and the importation of captive Africans was prohibited. But, at the same time, the country's slave population grew, new plantation crops appeared, and several new slave states joined the Union. Adam Rothman explores how slavery grew a staggering amount in a new nation formed by the principle of equality among free men, and tells the consequences of U.S. expansion into the region that became the Deep South. Rothman delves into the ideas of capitalism and nationalism that began a huge forced migration of slaves into Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. He tells the story of the relationships held among the European, African, and indigenous peoples who inhabited the Deep South during the Jeffersonian era, and who turned the region into a slave system. Rothman writes of the violence that jeopardized Jefferson’s vision of republican expansion across the American continent.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In Exchanging Our Country Marks, Michael Gomez brings together various strands of the historical record in a stunning fusion that points the way to a definitive history of American Slavery. In this fusion of history, anthropology, and sociology, Gomez has made expert use of primary sources, including newspapers ads for runaway slaves in colonial America. Slave runaway accounts from newspapers are combined with personal diaries, church records, and former slave narratives to provide a firsthand account of the African and African-American experiences during the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. With this mastery of sources, Gomez challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about slavery-- for example, that "the new condition of slavery superseded all others" (48)-- and he advances intriguing new speculations about the development of a collective African-American identity. In Gomez's words: "It is a study of their efforts to move from ethnicity to race as a basis for such an identity, a movement best understood when the impact of both internal and external forces upon social relations within this community is examined"(4).…

    • 1509 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Horton, James O., and Lois E. Horton. "The African Roots of Colonial America." Slavery and the Making of America. N.p.: Oxford UP, 2005. N. pag. SIRS Researcher. Web. 22 Oct. 2012. .…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Human Trafficking

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages

    When the word slavery comes to mind in the present day most people think of it as something that has passed, a long and tragic historical event that involved the capture and exportation and exploitation of human beings as forced labor with no freedom of movement or choice. Slavery brings to mind the forcible deportation of Africans into the new world, associated with colonization and empirical money making ventures, like sugar, coffee and cotton. Yet, the reality of the situation is that slavery exists today, and on an even greater scale than it did during the empirical era.…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Tobacco/Cotton Slavery FRQ

    • 1684 Words
    • 7 Pages

    When approaching slavery from a historical standpoint, it is a tendency to generalize the experience of slaves. However, slavery differs per region and time period. The differing climates of the Chesapeake region and Deep South determined the crops that would be grown and consequently the severity of slave labor. Likewise, over time slavery evolved from a class based system (poor indentured servants working alongside blacks) to a racially based system, creating an identity within the slave community. However, not only the slave experience differed, the institution itself transformed. The transition from class-based slavery to racial slavery, accompanied by new technologies that made the industry more profitable, changed how the institution was run. Thus, despite a general continuity in the institution of slavery, such as it being agrarian-based and involving black subordinates, many forces changed the institution like the installment of slave codes in 1670s, making it a legal and racial practice, and the development of the cotton gin and other technological advances in the 1790s. Whilst seventeenth century slavery was characterized by smaller tobacco plantations, racially-mixed servitude, and somewhat less-demanding labor, nineteenth century slavery was characterized by large-scale cotton plantations, solely black slavery, harsh and dangerous working conditions, and syncretic slave societies within plantations. This essay will approach identifying factors of change through the general categories of beginning, middle, and end of American slavery. It will also directly compare and contrast the institutions of early Chesapeake and later Deep South slavery.…

    • 1684 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    History has had an immersive influence on our lives today. Slavery is a sensitive subject to discuss, but it’s vital to get to the root of influences in African Americans lives. Africans experienced murky times in the 1600’s, they had their freedom revoked from them and was coerced to do free labor, known as Slavery. African slaves was not treated with rights like the colonist; they were treated and viewed equivalent to modern day machines; managed what needed to be managed, fixed what needed to be fix, and replaced what needed to be replaced. Slaves were originally promised land and freedom in exchange for seven years of labor, but as the colonies prospered the colonist were reluctant to lose their labor. In 1641 slavery became legalized; African…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The United States was built on slavery; it is woven into America’s history. Right after the Revolutionary War, slavery was abolished in most of the northern states. But it was rampant in the South where most of the citizens were farmers working in agriculture. A large amount of workers was needed for the success of the crops. The South was desperate for people to work in the fields. So when ships arrived in 1619 with African Americans the problem was solved, slaves seemed like a simple solution. Even though the Declaration of Independence states, “all men are created equal,” a large group of people were ignored. While white Americans were free, African American slaves were dehumanized daily without consequences. Endless work and abuse were a reality for some slaves. Not all slave owners abused their slaves and thought slavery was morally right. But no one wanted to speak up against it because if a person did they would be despised by their community. America had been split in half. The North wanted slavery to end, but the South had become…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    References: Elkins, Stanley M (1976). Slavery (Third Edition). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.…

    • 1726 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    African Americans from 1865

    • 2309 Words
    • 10 Pages

    African Americans have fought a great battle to become a part of society in America. Since being taken from African as slaves in the 1600’s there has been a continuous battle for equality since. Since the end of slavery Black Americans have had many accomplishments along with hardships. In this paper I will discuss some of the Major events in African American history beginning with the end of slavery which has lead to the America we know today.…

    • 2309 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This essay written by Jon Butler explains the evolution of slavery, including the Africans' experiences in America, and the developing of a sense of community among these people.…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery by Another Name

    • 1280 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Throughout the book, The Origins of Slavery, the author, Betty Woods, depicts how religion and race along with social, economic, and political factors were the key factors in determining the exact timing that the colonist’s labor bases of indentured Europeans would change to involuntary West African servitude. These religion and racial differences along with the economic demand for more labor played the key roles in the formation of slavery in the English colonies. When the Europeans first arrived to the Americas in the late sixteenth century, at the colony of Roanoke, the thought of chattel slavery had neither a clear law nor economic practice with the English. However by the end of that following century, the demand for slaves in the English colonies including the Chesapeake, Barbados, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas was so great and the majority of labor was carried out by West African slaves. The argument of whether Native Americans could also be used as a form of labor for the plantation societies of the English colonies is one that was long disputed between the English. Both Native Americans and West Africans were used as social mirrors. This meant that the English set both groups of people against themselves to emphasize what they conceived of as being completely different qualities of religious, social, and political organization, sexual behavior, and skin color. As Betty Woods explores the meaning of freedom and bondage in this small, yet impactful, five chapter book, she further determines the explanations English colonist used in answering the quest for cheap plantation labor.…

    • 1280 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    African American Retribution

    • 2513 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Horton, J. & Horton, L. (2005). Slavery and the making of America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.…

    • 2513 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays