Essay on Slavery

by Gerald E. Murphy

THE FATEFUL DECADE; the 1850's:

Among other oxymoronic phrases that have been passed down through the ages in our history, a few stand out as being perhaps more moronic than others. One of these is Civil War. It came to prominence as oxymoronic in the decade of the 1850's, known by many as The Fateful Decade in our national history. The cess- ation from the Union, and bloodshed among brothers and sons, came all too swiftly in the next decade. The roots of the conflict go back well before the first slavery practised in this hemisphere by a European, Columbus. The final straws which broke our ancerstor's backs were piled on in the 1850's.

There is nothing really civil about war between peoples of the same country. Yet, we have had a number of such events in this nation; the last and largest of which is still ongoing in the hearts and minds of some of our countrymen. The very earliest settlers of this hemisphere competed for hunting, fishing and gathering rights. In time, they competed for settlement rights and dominion over territory. For instance, the five nations of natives that peopled what is now much of New York State, Ohio, Pennsylvania and part of Ontario made war continuously with their neighbors before coming to an agreement in probably the mid-1300's. This agreement was fostered by two great Iroquois leaders of history known to us as Hiawatha, (not the Hiawatha of Longfellows' poetry), and Dekanaweda. They brought together the Five Nations of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Cayuga, thus forming the Iroquois League of Nations. That ended the warring among themselves, but made it now possible to make war against other peoples. Eventually, they adopted the Tuscarora people, bringing them into the League as a Sixth Nation.

The Iroquois League tried to remain neutral in the wars between the French and British invaders, hoping they would kill one another off, and leave the territory to the original settlers. In time, the Iroquois League came to support the British, fighting such Indians as those under Pontiac, from the Ottawa Nations in what is now Michigan and southern Ontario, among others. Europeans who tried to settle in contested areas became the victims, as did the several Indian nations. France prevailed in parts of what is now Canada, and Britain prevailed in the colonies, later taking over in Canada as well.

American independence from the British crown wasn't popular with everyone in the colonies. Warfare between colonials was common in many places. Those wishing separation from the crown fought other colonials just as much as they fought the British army and navy. This civil war is often overlooked or under- rated. Many colonials fled to Europe or to Canada, to prove their loyalty to the crown, or to avoid the fighting that eventually led to independence.

Once independence was assured, the colonials came together under the Articles of Confederation, for mutual aid among other things. But not all was peaceful. The Articles of Confederation were weak in many places. Representatives from each colony were invited to Annapolis to discuss improvements that might be made in the Articles. Too few came for there to be a consensus other than to meet again in Philadelphia at a later date. This next meeting gave us our Constitu- tion and nationhood. Careful study of the published discussions of that Consti- tutional Convention will point out just how important slavery was to both those strongly in support and those opposed. Not many issues were as dominant in the proceedings, nor has the furor completely gone away some 200 years later. Indeed, that one issue came to the fore in the Fateful Decade, some 6 decades later.

Slavery has been an issue in the western hemispere since the earliest days. Conquered tribes of Native Americans were often enslaved, or merely adopted into the conquering society. The coming of Europeans to the hemisphere began with slavery on the very first voyage of Columbus, and this importation and exporta- tion of slaves lasted nearly four centuries.

Christopher Columbus is solidly praised as a great explorer, and prover that the earth is round. Balderdash! Even the ancient Greeks knew the earth was round. Columbus was not the first European to come into this hemisphere. The legendary voyages of the Vikings and others using the northern route are well documented. But Columbus chose the southern route, hoping to find the riches, particularly gold, of the Far East and the Indies. Mistaking the early natives for citizens of the Indies, he called them Indians, and enslaved a large number of them. Many of those he could not transport back to Europe, he killed. The Arawak peoples in the West Indies were nearly wiped out, the lands they had been tilling were then taken over and farmed by slaves imported from Africa. Before the settlement by the Pilgrims in Massachusetts, Dutch traders were importing Africans into Virginia to farm rice, sugar, indigo and tobacco. The land of the free, indeed! By the time of our separation from Britain, slavery had been extant in this hemisphere by Europeans some few centuries. Some say it exists yet today, almost 500 years after the voyages of Columbus.

Covetous of the lands to the west of the colonies from the moment they started invading the continent, Europeans forced the Native Americans further west. Discovery in 1835 of gold in Georgia, in an area controlled by the Indians, brought back bitter memories of how Columbus had victimised and enslaved natives in his quest for riches. One of the more memorable, and regrettable, incidents was the Trail of Tears, in 1838. Members of the Civil- ized Nations had been forcibly taken from their homelands in the southeast, and removed to places in the Oklahoma Territory, including what is now Kansas. They were summarily disposessed of that land as well, opening it up to settlement by whites of European ancestry.

The nation expanded to the west, and to the south. As the population grew, so too were the chances for statehood. Growing debate in our early Congresses and the several state assemblies came down to the point of admitting new states as either slave or free states. One of these was Missouri. There was much debate as to whether it should be free or slave. The Missouri Compromise made it slave, but everywhere else north of 36 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude was free, this in 1820. This compromise had been offered by Henry Clay, passed the Congress in May of 1820, and repealed by a later Congress in 1854, during the fateful decade.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act, also in 1854, allowed for popular sovereignty, and the possibility of slavery in those new states. As an example of some of the emotions of the time, pro-slavery settlers sacked Lawrence, Kansas in May of 1856, and abolitionist John Brown, a white man, led anti-slavery forces against Missourians at Osawatomie, Kansas, in August. Three years later, he captured the U. S. arsennel at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, was subsequently captured by U. S. Army troops under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee, then a U. S. Army officer (and graduate of West Point). Brown was tried, convicted, and hanged for treason, (i.e. opposing slavery).

In 1857, the Supreme Court didn't help matters when they announced a decison in the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case. Scott had been taken from his native Missouri, (a slave state), to Illinois, (a free state), and thence to the Minnesota Territory, (likewise free). He claimed that this transportation into a free area made him a free man; the Supreme Court denied him his freedom, no surprise when you consider the Court was dominated by men from the south.

Blacks were denied full citizenship until the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, the 14th Amendment granted everyone but non-taxed Indians citizenship in 1868, (more on this in a moment), AND the 15th Amendment in 1870 made it illegal to establish voting rights based on race. It's almost ironic that Kansas and Missouri cast supportive votes that enabled all three; Nebraska didn't become a state until 1867, and was likewise supportive of the last two amendments mentioned.

The constitutional proviso that non-taxed Indians were not citizens was effec- tively negated by Federal law only in 1924; yet the Constitution has not been amended in this regard. In some states, it wasn't until 1948 that an Indian could vote. Another minority group that considers itself enslaved is that half of our population who are women. They didn't get to vote until the 19th Amend- ment in 1920, and are still waiting for an Equal Rights Amendment.

But, I digress...

Those earlier events led to the bitter fighting that ended the 1850's with the formation of what is now the Republican Party, election of Abraham Lincoln, and the beginnings of yet another Civil War.

Lincoln published his Emancipation Proclamation, and was soon assassinated, Lee surrendered at Appomatox to end the formal shooting, and the Republican Party has changed somewhat; but in some sections of this land we have not yet seen the end of the enslavement which is the real topic of this thesis. One wonders if we ever will, and finally become the Land of the Free.

© Gerald E. Murphy, June 22, 1988