LECTURE 8: SLAVERY, EMANCIPATION AND
THE US CIVIL WAR
Avoid using “slaves” but rather use “enslaved people”
I/ SLAVERY: A COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM :
● old phenomenon ancient times
● Triangular Trade (long, risky, BUT profitable)
● extremely organized and hierarchized, around harsh brutality
● based on pure violence :
- in work
- during the US Civil War
- in the service of or against abolition
- a strong legacy of violence against former enslaved people
● Key element of economic developpement :
- Spain & Portugal in Central America exploitation of mineral resources
- US plantation complex “King Cotton”
industrial developement : relationship between US Capitalism & slavery
● 10M people were force to leave their continent
● Social dimension:
- patterns of differentiation between workers & employers
- French Code Noir (Colbert 1685) = regulation of master/slaves
relationship
- « subsociety » : specific culture of their own = Black culture &
consciousness
● People knew: circulation of info + testimony of enslaved people
● Slavery as an issue : the idea of abolitionism appeared during the second half of the
18th
II/ RESISTANCES, REVOLTS, SELF-LIBERATION :
● The enslaved never accepted their situation
resistances
BUT increasingly harsh répression
repression weakened the “idealized” perspective of slavery
● Somes refusals;
- Lack of commitement to work
- assassination of masters
- refusal to give birth
- suicide
- escape marroon societies
- revolts/insurrections Nat Turner in Viriginia (1831), risk of being
slaughtered
- cultural resistance creole language
● No real sucess, but it was meaningful
III/ FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTIONS TO POLITICAL
DEBATES IN EUROPE TO ABOLITIONS :
Abolitionism: movement to end slavery, be it formal or informal.
Emancipation: process of giving people social and political freedom and rights.
A. FROM RELIGION AND ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTIONS :
● American Quakers were the first abolitionist, because slavery was incompatible with
spirit of Christianity
● End of the 17th
● distinction between trade & slavery (Great Britain & Netherlands evangelical
protestoris against slavery)
● philosophers
● 18th (enlightenment), slavery = violation of moral and natural laws
● Rousseau, Condorcet, Raynal, Voltaire
From the second half of the 1770s, a growing influence on public opinion
● Economic considerations : economists (liberals & French physiocrats)
● 1760s : slavery becomes less efficient than work
During the second half of 1770s : slavery necessary for economy BUT anti-slavery
societies
1. US REVOLUTION & LIMITS
● Slavery controversial issue between North & South → impediment to the issuing of a
federal constitution
● January 1, 1808: compromise → general law forbade slave trade
BUT not slavery
2. FRENCH REVOLUTION & LIMITS
● Revolutionary France = First to ban slavery
● Mirabeau, Condorcet, Olympes de Gouges :
- 1791: abolition slavery in France
- 1794: abolition slavery everywhere in its colonies
- 1802: Bonaparte reinstated slavery
B. POLITICAL DEBATES AND SLOW PROGRESS IN EUROPE :
● William Wilberforce, in UK – parliamentary : leader of the movement wanted to
eradicate the slave trade.
● Victor Schœlcher, in France – polemist : abolition society in 1834. He worked
especially hard for the abolition of slavery on the Caribbean islands, notably the French West
Indies.3
● Abraham Lincoln, in US - parliamentary : led Civil War, preserved the Union,
abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
● Debates about :
- abolition (yes/no)
- abolitionists (gradual/direct)
- abolitionism (political or moral movement)
1. GREAT BRITAIN :
● Banning of slave trade
BECAUSE less profitable & protected slave owners in colonies
● William Wilberforce’s anti-slavery moves driven by religion and then by reality
● At first very few abolitionists BUT support of Willian Pitt the Younger & William
Grenvill
● February 1807: slave trade banned
had to be imposed on other nations, which is difficult
BUT navy & influence
● After 1807 : UK leader of abolitionist movement (petitions signed)
● 1815: Congress of Vienna = international disapproval
●
● 1818: Congress of Aix-La-Chapelle = slavery banned in 5 countries
● antislavery societies & Ladies’ associations (boycott)
● August 1, 1833 = slavery banned in the UK (landowner compensations &
apprenticeship for slaves during 7 years)
● January 1838 : complete and definitive emancipation
0. FRANCE :
● During the 100 Days,Bonaparte banned slavery to please UK → confirmed in the
Treaty of Paris (November 1815)
● Louis 18th ordinance (January 1817)
BUT smuggling until 1827
● July monarchy debates between abolitionists & reformists of Black Code
living & working conditions of the enslaved improved
● 1839 civil status to slaves
● 1848: revolutionary context heated up the slavery question
Victor Schoelcher contributed to the signing of a decree abolishing slavery in
all French colonies (March)
Constitution of 1848 stated the abolition of slavery in all French lands (ARTICLE 6)
0. REST OF EUROPE :
● DENMARK: first to officially abolish slave trade (1792).
● BRITAIN: 28 treaties notably involving European countries.
● THE NETHERLANDS (1863)
● PORTUGAL (1869)
● SPAIN (1880)
0. LATIN AMERICA
● The partisans of independence were in favor of slavery
● divisions between independentis & abolitsts
● in the end : slave aspirations used by people fighting for independence
1850s: abolition adopted by most of European countries & Latin America
IV/ THE US CASE. INCLUDING COMMENTS ABOUT HARRIET
BEECHER STOWE, UNCLE TOM’S CABIN (1852) :
● June 1788 - April 1861: slavery was a poisonous issue
● January 1, 1808: slave trade banned BUT smuggling kept going on
● The owners of enslaved people endeavoured to adapt themselves :
- Enslaved = capital
- « breeding »
- « coloured cattle »
● tentative of escape from South to North :
1815: underground Railway from North US to Canada
Harriet Tubman: freed slaves became abolitionists, a real agency towards the
abolition process
Nat Turner (1831)
● 1850: A law forced the police of each states to participate in the chasing of slaves
who tried to escape
tensions growing
● In the South, King Cotton reigns and prevents any Industrial Revolution from
happening. ⅓ of the population of the southern states is slaves. The rise of price of
slaves prevented slave owners from acquiring better machineries. There were as a
consequence no diversification in the labor.
● In the North, the Industrial Revolution was really active. A federal policy was
created for economical developpement. The population grew, the middle class too.
Social campaigns & actions for the abolition of slavery took place. At the beginning
there was only a few abolitionists, and they were divided.
BOOK OF THE SESSION
Harriet Beecher-Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852
⮚ The publishing did not calm the situation.
⮚ She was born in a family that was a firm proponent of abolition.
⮚ One year after the publication, 300 000 copies had been sold just in the US.
⮚ It was a huge success in Europe too.
⮚ In the South, the book provoked rage and hatred.
⮚ 30 books were published in answer to demonstrate how she was just wrong.
V/ THE US CIVIL WAR AND ITS ECHOES IN EUROPE.
A. PATHS TO BELLIGERENCE :
● Secondnd half 1850s: 2 events increased tensions between South and North :
- May 1854: Kansas-Nebraska law : settlers of a new territory would
have the rights to decide about the application of slavery
led to the period “bleeding Kansas”
- 1857: Supreme Court decision Dred Scott VS Sandford
slaver S. Scott was refused emancipation while following his master in the
north where slavery was banned
slave was no citizen so no right to sue in federal court
● 1854: creation of the republican party
regrouped adversaries of slavery
Abraham Lincoln more & more influential
● 1861: elected president
● His election was a threat for the system on which the old South was built
●
beginning of secession process
● 1861: Jefferson Davis provisional President of Confederation of American States
B. A LONG AND BLOODY WAR :
1. CONFEDERATION OF THE SOUTH
● 11 states
● Jefferson Davis (political experience)
● growing instability : Union Laws were maintained
● March 11, 1861: constitution of the Confederation recognized slavery BUT
maintained banning of slave trade
● weaker economy & small population (9M VS 23M)
BUT military tradition → aim of quick & decisive victory
● An ambiguous diplomacy:
✔ support by France & Britain for cotton + Northern blockade = recognition
✔ Napoleon III : in favor of confederation because would facilitate his policy in Mexico
✔growing divide between economical & moral considerations
0. UNION OF THE NORTH
● 7 states
● Abraham Lincoln (no political experience)
● cabinet of republicans
● defense of the Union = main goal (not slavery!)
● large population
● use of economy, industrial and agricultural resources
● Long Term strategy = “anaconda strategy” because the south was stronger, even
if each side wished for a quick war
no real diplomatic decision during the first two years
0. 3 PERIODS :
● 1861-1862: Confederacy offensive
BUT no decisive blow
good generals so mobilization of all resources against the North
Union defensive BUT no real general
The conquest of New Orleans opened Mississippi Rivers
cotton supply = strong trouble for European industries (unemployement,
bankruptcies...)
● 1863: a decisive year
Union Victory at Gettysburg in July
Adress by Lincoln in November
Lincoln announced emancipation for all slaves (september 1862)
War against slavery
January 31, 1865: 13th amendments abolished slavery
these victories on the battlefield provoked an irresistible shift to the North
● 1864-1865: still combative south
General T. Sherman’s “March to the Sea” (May 1864) from
Chattanooga to the ocean
devastating in the Confederacy Series of bloody battles in May-June 1864
April 9, 1865: unconditional surrender signed by the confederation
C. A TRANSITIONAL WAR :
● A modern war :
- fighting everywhere
- technical improvements
- guerilla on both sides
- black soldiers in the Union Army
● A classic war :
- mess in terms of medicine and surgery
- propaganda
- terrible fate for prisoners of war
- Napoleonic precepts in terms of strategy
- monstrous losses
● A total war ?
- involvement of women
- aim of unconditional surrender
- massive destruction
- the conflict degenerated in a « close to being total » war (James
MCPHERSON)
BUT no mobilization of the total economy, no ideological mobilization; no idea of total
eradication of the enemy
D. COMING OUT OF WAR :
● ECONOMY :
- much more destruction in the south (a tattered economy)
- Union emerged stronger
● ARMY & DEMOBILIZATION:
- union army (200 000) in charge of restoring order and law everywhere
- efficient & moderate
- NO political rôle
● SLAVERY:
- Civil War ended its practice:
- 13th amendment: in 1865, abolition of slavery is integrated in the Constitution
- 14th amendment: civil rights given to former slaves
- 15th amendment : right to vote given in March 30 1870
● POLITICS:
- new President Andrew Johnson caught between radicals & republicans
between firmness & moderation
- 1870: all Confederate states integrated the Union
● 1877 (end of the Reconstruction Era): beginning of racial segregation because the
states had the right to establish the legal framework of relations between Blacks and Whites
racism until 1926 and the creation of SDN and 1948 with the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (ARTICLE 4 banned slavery in all its forms)
The US civil war is considered as the Second birth of the US Republic
VI/ ELEMENTS OF CONCLUSION: ON THE LONGER TERM :
● Not the end of hardships for African Americans, notably in the Old South. They will suffer
from economical, legal (Jim Crow Laws), cultural (racism) attacks.
● A necessary vigilance : there is still 40 M enslaved people nowadays.
CASE STUDY
Dying during the US Civil War
⮚ 620 000 dead (= 2% of the US population)
⮚ The Confederation army = 260 000 dead (1 out of 3,5)
⮚ The Union Army = 360 000 perished (1 out of 6)
⮚ Therefore, Historians consider that with the Us civil war the United States of America
entered the era of mass death
⮚ Artillery caused spectacular and terrifying injuries (5%), bodies were destroyed.
⮚ The dead were not buried for several months because enemy’s death did not ‘deserve’ it, and
because there was a clear lack of man force to perform such tasks. Observers describe the
‘smell of death’ all over the regions of the United States.
⮚ Such a mass death weakened an ‘art of dying’ (= art moriendi). Thousands of Americans
were dying alone, far from their homes. The families did not know the circumstances of the
death, how or of what the beloved one died. They also did not know if he died as a religious
man, having made peace with god.
⮚ PHILLIPE ARIÈS, in his book Essais sur l’histoire de la mort en Occident du Moyen Age
à nos jours describes four steps about death:
- 1. the ‘tamed death’, when the individual knows he is going to die and he
is preparing himself
- 2. « death of oneself » stage, it is an individual who is dying and not a
member of a community
- 3. The death of the other : this is the context in which we are when
studying the US Civil War. From the 18th century, people in Western societies
tended to give death a new meaning. The exalted death and put emphasis on
worship of graves and cemeteries, and on the process of mourning.
- 4. The forbidden death : this process starts in the 1940s/1950s, when
death is taken away from the family and moved to the hospitals.
⮚ It created an emotional community around the mourning process.
⮚ The soldiers took various measures. They prepared themselves to death – they got closer to
religion for example. They also made pacts with comrades. They would evacuate wounded
from the battlefield.
⮚ Mourning soldiers wrote a letter to the family and send small personal belongings of
the dead. The soldiers themselves possibly carried on them a last letter they had written in
case the worse happened.
⮚ With the sick and wounded soldiers, comrades, chaplains and nurses played an important role
and replaced the families.
⮚ The families tried to organize themselves. Many endeavoured to look for the corpses
to pay tribute to their lost ones. This was a painful and difficult, and long process. This
looking for the corpse created some very profitable businesses. Some people were pretending
that they knew everything about the battlefield and everyone in the army, and that they would
look for the corpses in exchange for money.
⮚ All in all, this phenomenon of mass death and its consequences made the coming out
of war process even more difficult at the collective and individual level.
⮚ For more than 30 years, until 1891, tribute was only paid to the Union deaths.
⮚ It is only PRESIDENT MCKINLEY, in the War against Spain in 1898, who decided that
tribute should be paid to all the dead of the US Civil War.
⮚ It is only in 1929 that the headstones given to the dead were the same in the US cemeteries.