The Effects of Slave Rebellions on the Abolitionist Movement in the 19th Century, Essay Example

The institution of slavery has existed for as long as human history has existed. The system of slavery that was used to provide labor for the European colonies, however, did not develop until relatively recently, and grew significantly in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The British colonies in North America, for example, were in dire need of labor as many white colonists died of disease and starvation. This labor shortage prompted the colonists to bring black slaves from Africa to the North American colonies by the tens of thousands in the 1700s and 1800s. At the same time as the Atlantic slave trade was growing larger, so was the sentiment among many people in Europe and the colonies that slavery was immoral and should be abolished. Abolitionists included both blacks and whites in the North American colonies, though those from these two groups often used very different approaches to abolitionism which resulted in successes for some and failure for others. During this time there were a number of notable black abolitionists, including such prominent figures as Gabriel, Nat Turner, and Denmark Vesey. These abolitionists resorted to, or at least planned to, use violence to attain their goals, but this choice often caused more problems than it solved for the abolitionist movement.

The issue of slavery in the British colonies, and later in the new nation of the United States of America, was a contentious one from the beginning. As the colonies grew increasingly independent from Britain, public discourse was often dominated by discussions about the ideals of freedom and individual liberty. The ideals of the Enlightenment took hold in the colonies as notions about “natural law” began to replace earlier beliefs that rulers –such as King George III of Great Britain- were granted their status as royalty from “divine law” (Hazen, 2004). The Declaration of Independence, along with earlier proclamations such as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, contained pronouncements such as “ all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Such assertions began to find favor among the colonists, and they served as the ideological foundation of the Revolutionary War (Hazen). For many colonists, especially in the Northern colonies, there was a significant contradiction between the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the practical reality of the institution of slavery on which the emerging nation had been built (Hazen). As the war came to an end and the individual states were forming their own governments and working together to create a national government, the issue of slavery became more and more contentious.

The primary proponents of slavery in the colonies and in the new United Sates were the Southern states; the economic systems in the South were built almost entirely on the slave labor that worked on cotton plantations and in other agricultural jobs. Despite technological advances such as the cotton gin, which made processing cotton faster and more efficient, the need for slave labor did not decrease, but actually grew (Hazen). The greater efficiency in the cotton industry allowed plantation owners to get greater yields, and many of them began to expand their operations, moving westward from Virginia and the Carolinas into Alabama, Georgia, and other regions. As the South was expanding their need for slave labor, the Northern states were passing legislation that abolished slavery and gave Free Blacks more freedoms and legal rights than ever before. Calls for abolition of slavery grew louder and louder, and abolitionists from both the South and the North became more and more aggressive in their efforts to bring an end to slavery (Greenberg, 2003).

White abolitionists from the North pushed for abolition by using the political machinery and propaganda that was more readily accessible to whites than it was to blacks. An organization called the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), for example, called for legislation that would bring an end to slavery (Greenberg). The AASS worked in conjunction with some Free Blacks and former slaves; Frederick Douglass, who was an escaped slave, often appeared at meetings and gatherings held by the AASS and spoke to audiences about the need to end slavery (Hazen). At the other end of the political spectrum of abolitionists were slaves and Free Blacks who fomented uprisings and slave rebellions, which often turned violent. One of the most famous figures of the abolitionist movement was Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831 (Hine, Hine, and Harrold, 2010). The rebelling slaves who joined in the uprising, which became known as Nat Turner’s Rebellion, killed dozens of whites over the course of several days (Greenberg). The rebellion was eventually put down and many slaves were killed or recaptured. While Nat Turner’s Rebellion did prompt some public discussions about abolition, the effect of the rebellion did not help the abolitionists’ cause; in its aftermath, many Southern slave owners and politicians pushed for even stronger and stricter laws to prevent similar uprisings (Greenberg).

Nat Turner’s Rebellion was not the only action promoted by a slave that ended badly for abolitionists. Years earlier, in 1800, a slave known by the name Gabriel attempted to organize a slave revolt in Virginia (Carroll, 1968). Before Gabriel’s plans could be carried out, however, the word about the planned uprising got out. Gabriel was captured and he and dozens of other slaves who were involved in the planned rebellion were executed. In response to Gabriel’s intention to foment an uprising the state of Virginia enacted strict new laws that made life difficult not only for blacks who were still enslaved but also for Free Blacks (Carroll). These laws prohibited blacks from gathering together and limited their access to education, all in an effort to make it more difficult for blacks to plan future slave revolts.

Former slave Denmark Vessey, who had purchased his own freedom years earlier, met a fate similar to that of Gabriel (Carroll). Vessey planned a slave revolt in the South, and like Gabriel, Vessey’s plans became known before he could carry them out. Vessey too was hanged for the crime of planning a rebellion, and the fear generated by his attempt to carry out a slave revolt prompted lawmakers in South Carolina to place restrictions on both slaves and slave owners (Hine, Hine, and Harrold). These laws made it more difficult for slave owners to allow their slaves to purchase or be given their freedom, and restricted the ability of blacks to move about or gather together in public or in private.

While it is certainly understandable why black slaves and Free Blacks would sometimes resort to violence or make plans to rebel against slave owners, many of these efforts taken by slaves and free blacks prompted so much fear among whites that the responses and retaliation against them set the abolitionist movement back rather than pushing it forward. The relative powerlessness of slaves and of Free Blacks made it difficult to access the levers of governmental and political power, leaving the power to bring about abolition primarily in the hands of white men. Although the Civil War was fought, at least in part, over the issue of slavery, it was not violence that did the most for the abolitionist movement. What promoted the ideals of abolition were many of the same things that had underpinned the American Revolution; in the end, it was the increasingly-enlightened public discourse that began to convince more and more people that slavery was an immoral institution, and one that was ultimately incompatible with the ideals of freedom and liberty on which the United States was founded.

Works Cited

Carroll, Joseph C. Slave Insurrections in the United States, 1800-1865. New York, NY: Negro Universities Press, 1968. Print.

Greenberg, Kenneth S. Nat Turner: A Slave Rebellion in History and Memory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.

Hazen, Walter A. American Black History. St. Louis, Mo: Milliken, 2004. Print.

Hine, Darlene C, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold. The African-American Odyssey (Combined Volume) 5^th ed.. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.