Slavery Essays

Peter Kolchin is a history professor at the University of Delaware. In 1970, Kolchin received a degree from John Hopkins University. He now specializes in nineteenth-century U.S. history, the South, slavery and emancipation, and comparative history. In his career he has written many books on slavery including Unfree Labor: American …

The Civil War was the greatest and most important war ever to be fought on American soil. Though the events leading to the civil war had been ongoing for some time, the Civil War was never inevitable; it was the result of prejudices and extremism and failures in leadership on …

After reading a copy of Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years A Slave, I was overwhelmed with his experience. He was born a free man in New York in 1808. In 1841 he was tricked, captured, and sold into slavery in Washington, D.C. Throughout his book, Solomon goes into details describing his …

In the United States in 1860, the county and people mainly depended on farming rather than industrializing like other nations such as Great Britain. Not only did they depend of farming but since there were not many cities, most people lived in small towns. It took the U.S. a lot …

Throughout the years before the Civil War, people from the North and South argued about the institution of slavery. Blacks wanted to be recognized as humans and wanted to have the rights that were given to the whites. Others saw slavery as a way of life and thought that slaves …

A People’s History of the United States is a book written by Howard Zinn, whose purpose is not to introduce someone to American History. He assumes his readers already know the basics. Of course, many people do not. It is not a history of the United States but it is …

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall…freedom and slavery are mental states.” This simple quote symbolizes the lives of Frederick Douglass and Olaudah Equiano. Both of which were slaves who tried to free themselves. Both Douglass and …

The views of John Brown’s raid of the federal armory at Harpers Ferry illustrate the changing of North-South relations between the years of 1859 and 1863. After the event occurred, many looked down upon it in order to try and prevent the inevitable Civil War. However, throughout the next few …

Though slavery was a key cause of the Civil War, it was not the sole reason for it. To hold slavery as the sole reason for the Civil War is incorrect as there were numerous economic, political and moral reasons behind the strife. Sectionalism (between the Northern and Southern states), …

In “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, Douglass describes the hardships of his life. Even though my life experiences are different from Douglass in many ways, they are similar in many respects. Frederick Douglas lived through slavery, and in my lifetime I lived through the ends of the …