African slaves began to be imported into the territory of the modern United States of America in the 17th century. The first permanent settlement of English colonists in America, James Town, was founded in 1607. And twelve years later, in 1619, the colonists acquired a small group of Africans of Angolan origin from the Portuguese. Although these blacks were not formally slaves, but had long-term contracts without the right to terminate, it is from this event that the history of slavery in America is usually counted. The indenture system was soon officially replaced by the more profitable system of slavery. In 1641, Massachusetts changed the term of service for slaves to life, and a 1661 law in Virginia made maternal slavery hereditary for children. Similar laws enshrining slavery were passed in Maryland (1663), New York (1665), South (1682) and North Carolina(1715), etc.
The importation of blacks and the introduction of slavery were a consequence of the need for labor in the south of North America, where large agricultural enterprises were established - tobacco, rice and other plantations. In the North, where the plantation economy, due to special economic and climatic conditions, was less widespread, slavery was never used on such a scale as in the South.
The black slaves imported to America were mostly residents of the western coast of Africa, a much smaller part belonged to the tribes of Central and Southern Africa, as well as North Africa and the island of Madagascar. Among them were blacks of the Fulbe, Wolof, Yoruba, Ibo, Ashanti, Fanti, Hausa, Dahomey, Bantu and others tribes.
Until the end of the 17th century, the slave trade in the English colonies in America was a monopoly of the Royal African Company, but in 1698 this monopoly was eliminated, and the colonies received the right to independently engage in the slave trade. The slave trade took on even wider dimensions after 1713, when England achieved the right of asiento - the exclusive right to trade in black slaves.
In Africa, an agency of slave traders was created who rounded up slaves and prepared them for sale. This organization reached the far reaches of Africa and many people worked for it, including tribal and village leaders. The leaders either sold their fellow tribesmen or launched attacks on hostile tribes, took captives, and then sold them into slavery. The captured blacks were tied up in twos and led through the forests to the coast.
Factories grew along the western coast of Africa from Cape Verde to the equator, where slaves were driven in batches. There, in dirty, cramped barracks, they awaited the arrival of slave ships. When a ship arrived for “live goods,” the agents began to negotiate with the captains. Each black man was shown personally. The captains forced the blacks to move his fingers, arms, legs and whole body to make sure that he had no fractures. Even the teeth were checked. If there were not enough teeth, then a lower price was given for the black man. Each black cost approximately 100 gallons of rum, 100 pounds of gunpowder, or 18-20 dollars. Women under 25, pregnant or not, were worth full price, but after 25 they lost a quarter of the price.
When the transactions ended, the slaves began to be transported in boats to ships. They transported 4-6 blacks at a time. On board the ship, the blacks were divided into three groups. The men were loaded into one compartment. Women in another. Children were left on deck. Slaves were transported on ships specially designed to “stuff” more live goods into the hold. Small sailing ships of that time managed to transport 200, 300, even 500 slaves in one voyage. And at least 600 slaves were loaded onto the ship with a displacement of 120 tons. As the slave traders themselves said, “a Negro should not take up more space in the hold than in a coffin.”
2 On the road
The ships were on the road for 3-4 months. All this time the slaves were in terrible conditions. The holds were very crowded, the blacks were shackled. There was very little water and food. There was no thought of taking the slaves out of the hold to relieve themselves. In the darkness, the slave ship was easily distinguished from any other - by the heavy stench emanating from it. Young black women were often raped by the captain and crew. Blacks had their nails cut short so they couldn't tear each other's skin. A large number of fights broke out between men as they tried to make themselves a little more comfortable. Then the overseer's whip came into play.
Slaves died in droves during transportation. For every Negro who survived, there were often five who died on the road - suffocated from lack of air, died from illness, went crazy, or simply threw themselves into the sea, preferring death to slavery.
3 America
Upon arrival in America, slaves were first fed, treated, and then sold. However, some tried to buy slaves quickly: after all, as the slave took a break from the “travel,” the cost increased. Slave prices varied over time. For example, in 1795 the price was $300, by 1849 it had risen to $900, and on the eve of the Civil War it reached $1,500-2,000 per slave.
Slaves were imported mainly for the tobacco and cotton plantations of the southern states. They were sent to work in batches, they worked up to 18-19 hours a day, driven by the scourge of the overseer. At night the slaves were locked up and the dogs were let loose. The average life expectancy of a black slave on plantations was 10 years, and in the 19th century it was 7 years. Conditions were slightly better for those slaves who served as servants, cooks, and nannies.
Slaves had no rights and freedoms and were considered the property of the owner, with whom the owner could do whatever he wanted without any prosecution by the law. The Virginia Slave Code, adopted in 1705, prohibited slaves from leaving plantations without written permission. He sanctioned flogging, branding and mutilation as punishment for even minor offenses. Some codes prohibited teaching slaves to read and write. In Georgia, the crime was punishable by a fine and/or flogging if the offender was a “negro slave or free person of color.” The ears of a slave who escaped and was caught were cut off, and the arms and legs of his children were cut off for unfulfilled work. A slave owner could, if he wished, kill his slave, although able-bodied slaves were rarely killed.
Slaves were prohibited from traveling in groups of more than 7 people unless accompanied by whites. Any white man who met a black man outside the plantation had to demand a ticket from him, and if he did not have one, he could give him 20 lashes. If a black man tried to defend himself or respond to a blow, he was subject to execution. For being outside the house after 9 pm, blacks in Virginia were quartered.
Negroes were made slaves, but they were never submissive slaves. They often started uprisings on ships. This is evidenced by a special type of insurance for shipowners to cover losses specifically in the event of a slave rebellion on the ship. But also on the plantations where blacks lived, brought from different parts Africa, representatives of various tribes who spoke different languages, the slaves managed to overcome inter-tribal strife and unite in the fight against their common enemy - the planters. During the period from 1663 to 1863, over 250 black uprisings and conspiracies were recorded. Black uprisings were brutally suppressed. But even these isolated outbursts of despair among the oppressed slaves made the planters tremble with fear. Almost every plantation had its own weapons depot, and groups of planters maintained security detachments that prowled the roads at night.
Negro slaves expressed their protest in other forms, such as damage to tools, murder of overseers and owners, suicide, escapes, etc. Blacks fled to the forests, to the Indians, to the North, where by the end of the 18th century slavery was abolished . At least 60 thousand fugitives reached the northern states between 1830 and 1860.
Of course, the living conditions of each individual slave depended on his owner. In 1936-1938, American writers, participants in the so-called Federal Writers' Project, commissioned by the government, recorded interviews with former slaves, who by that time were over 80 years old. The result was the publication of Collected Stories of Former Slaves. From these stories it is very clear that blacks lived differently, some were more lucky, some were less fortunate. Here is the story of 91-year-old George Young (Livingston, Alabama): “They didn’t teach us anything and didn’t let us learn ourselves. If they saw us learning to read and write, our hand would be cut off. They weren't allowed to go to church either. Sometimes we would run away and pray together in an old house with a dirt floor. There we rejoiced and shouted, and no one heard us, because the earthen floor muffled us, and one person stood in the doorway. We weren't allowed to visit anyone, and I saw Jim Dawson, Iverson Dawson's father, tied to four stakes. They laid him on his stomach and stretched out his arms to the sides, and tied one hand to one stake and the other to the other. The legs were also stretched to the sides and tied to stakes. And then they started beating me with a board - the kind they put on the roof. The blacks then came there at night and carried him home on a sheet, but he did not die. He was accused of going to a neighboring plantation at night. At nine o'clock we all had to be home. The elder came and shouted: “All clear! Lights out! Everyone go home and lock the doors!” And if anyone didn’t go, they beat him.”
And here is the memory of Nicey Pugh (85 years old, Mobile, Alabama): “Life was happy for the blacks then. Sometimes I want to go back there. How now I see that glacier with butter, milk and cream. How a stream gurgles over the stones, and above it there are willows. I hear turkeys cackling in the yard, chickens running and bathing in the dust. I see a creek next to our house and cows that have come to drink and cool their feet in the shallow water. I was born into slavery, but I was never a slave. I worked for good people. Is this called slavery, white gentlemen?
The beginning of the importation of slaves into the territory of the modern United States of America coincided with the entry of England into the era of colonial conquests,
The first permanent settlement of English colonists in America—James Town—was founded in 1607. Twelve years later, in 1619, the first ship bringing blacks landed on the shores of North America 2 .
The importation of blacks and the introduction of slavery were a consequence of the need for labor "in the south of North America, where large agricultural farms - tobacco, rice and other plantations - were established on lands distributed by the kings to their entourage. In the North, where the plantation economy, by virtue special economic and climatic conditions, was less common, slavery was never used on such a scale as in the South. However, in the northern states there were slaves, mainly domestic servants, agricultural laborers, etc.
The first blacks were brought to America as indentured laborers, but very soon the indenture system was officially replaced by the more profitable system of slavery. In 1641, in Massachusetts, the term of service for slaves was changed to life, and a law in 1661 in Virginia made maternal slavery hereditary for children. Similar laws enshrining slavery were passed in Maryland (1663), New York (1665), South (1682) and North Carolina (1715), etc.
So the blacks became slaves.
The black slaves imported to America were mostly residents of the western coast of Africa, a much smaller part belonged to the tribes of Central and Southern Africa, as well as North Africa and the island of Madagascar. Among them were blacks from the Fulbe, Wolof, Yoruba, Ibo, Ashanti, Fanti, Hausa, Dahomey, Bantu and others tribes 1 .
The black tribes of Africa were at various levels of social and economic development, had their own customs and spoke languages distributed among three main linguistic families - Bantu, Semitic-Hamitic and Sudanese 2 . Some tribes had slavery for prisoners of war and criminals, as well as economic (debt) slavery.
Until the end of the 17th century. The slave trade in the English colonies in America was a monopoly of the Royal African Company, but in 1698 this monopoly was eliminated, and the colonies received the right to independently engage in the slave trade. The slave trade took on even wider dimensions after 1713, when England achieved the right of asiento - the exclusive right to trade in black slaves. Blacks were caught, bought, goods were exchanged for them, they were loaded into the stinking holds of ships and taken to America. All of Africa has turned, in the words of K. Marx, into a “reserved hunting ground for blacks” 3 . Slave factories grew along the western coast of Africa from Cape Verde to the equator, where slaves were driven in batches, tied by the neck with ropes and chained. Here, in dirty, cramped barracks, they awaited the arrival of slave ships. Documents show that the 120-ton ship was loaded with at least 600 slaves. The blacks shackled were forced into the hold onto shelves, the distance between which was so small that each person had less space than in a coffin.
Slaves died in droves in the barracks of trading posts and during transportation. But although for every Negro who survived there were often five who died on the road - suffocated from lack of air, died from illness, went crazy, or simply threw themselves into the sea, preferring death to slavery - slave traders received fabulous profits: the demand for Negroes was so great , and slaves were so cheap and paid for themselves so quickly. Negroes were so cheap that it was more profitable for planters to torture a slave in backbreaking work in a short time than to exploit him longer, but more carefully. The average life expectancy of a slave on plantations in some areas of the South did not exceed six or seven years.
Slavery developed slowly at first. Thus, in 1670 there were only about 2 thousand slaves in Virginia (about 5% of the total population). But by 1715, slaves made up about one-third of the population of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Maryland (46 thousand out of 123 thousand). As the plantation economy grew, there was a further increase in the import of slaves. According to the US Census Bureau, before January 1, 1808, when the importation of slaves was prohibited by law, about 400 thousand blacks were imported into the United States. From the beginning of the 19th century. by 1860 the number of slaves increased from 893 thousand to 4 million.
Despite the ban on the import of slaves in 1808, the slave trade did not stop. It existed in a hidden form until the official emancipation of blacks during the Civil War of 1861-1865. Blacks were now smuggled, which further increased the mortality rate during transportation. It is estimated that between 1808 and 1860 about half a million slaves were smuggled into the United States. In addition, the subject of trade was blacks, specially “raised” for sale in some slave states of the South (especially in South Carolina and Virginia).
Bourgeois racist historians like to contrast Indians with blacks - free hunters who died but did not submit to slave owners. From this it is concluded that slavery is the natural condition of the Negroes. However, the very premise of such a opposition is a falsification of history. “A Negro is a Negro, only under certain conditions does he become a slave,” wrote K. Marx 1 . Negroes were made slaves, but they were never submissive slaves. Often blacks started uprisings on ships. This is evidenced by a special type of insurance for shipowners to cover losses specifically in the event of a slave rebellion on the ship. But even on the plantations, where blacks brought from different parts of Africa lived, representatives of different tribes speaking different languages, slaves managed to overcome inter-tribal strife and unite in the fight against their common enemy - the planters. So, already in 1663 and 1687. Major conspiracies of blacks in Virginia were discovered, and in 1712 the garrison of New York with great difficulty managed to prevent the capture of the city by rebellious black slaves. During the period from 1663 to 1863, when Negro slavery was abolished, over 250 Negro uprisings and conspiracies 2 were recorded, including such large ones as the uprisings led by Cato (1739) in Stono (South Carolina), Gabriel, sometimes called named after the owner by Gabriel Prosser (1800), in Henrico (Virginia), Denmark Vesey (1822) in Charleston (South Carolina), and Nat Turner (1831) in Southampton (Virginia).
Black uprisings were brutally suppressed. But even these isolated outbursts of despair among the oppressed slaves made the planters tremble with fear. Almost every plantation had its own weapons depot, and groups of planters maintained security detachments that prowled the roads at night. “The entire social system in the southern states,” notes F. Foner, “was based on the direct suppression of blacks by force of arms” 1 .
Negro slaves expressed their protest in other forms, such as damage to tools, murder of overseers and owners, suicide, escape, etc. Escape required great courage and courage from the Negro, because if a runaway slave was caught, his ears were cut off , and sometimes, if he offered armed resistance, their hands or branded him with a hot iron. Nevertheless, blacks - men, women and even children - fled to the forests, to the Indians, to the North, where by the end of the 18th century. slavery was abolished (see below). According to G. Epteker 2, at least 60 thousand fugitives reached the northern states in the period from 1830 to 1860. The number of blacks who died on the road or were captured and executed by slave owners will never be known.
Escapes of slaves from plantations became especially widespread during the revolution of 1774-1783. Blacks played an important role in the struggle of the American colonies against English rule. George Washington, who for a long time hesitated to recruit blacks as soldiers, was forced to resort to this measure in 1776 due to the advance of the British and the general difficult situation in the country. According to some estimates, there were at least 5 thousand blacks in Washington’s army, many of whom distinguished themselves in the struggle: Crispus Attucks, Peter Salem, Austin Debney, James Armistead, Deborah Gennett and others. Negro veterans who were released for military merit from the Rao- ties, increased the number of free blacks of the North and South. But the revolution of 1774-1783 did not resolve the issue of slavery and its abolition. The new constitution was essentially based on the recognition of slavery, as can be seen from a number of its articles 3 . Under pressure from slave owners, a nationwide fugitive slave law was passed in 1793. Other questions about slavery were left to the discretion of individual states. However, during and shortly after the Revolution, slavery was abolished in the northern and northwestern states.
The slave uprisings and their struggle for their emancipation not only sowed fear among the planters; they awakened the consciousness of Americans and contributed to the development of a broad democratic movement, which, together with the struggle of the blacks themselves, ultimately led to the abolition of slavery.
The earliest protests against slavery in North America date back to the end of the 17th century. Their authors - Quakers and representatives of some other religious sects - denied slavery as contrary to the principles of the Christian religion and morality. In 1775, America's first local anti-slavery society was formed in Philadelphia. One of the organizers of the society was Benjamin Franklin. In the 90s of the XVIII century. similar societies already existed in many states. But in early XIX V. there is a certain decline in the movement for the liberation of blacks, and the illusion is widespread that after the prohibition of the importation of slaves, slavery should die out of its own accord. In reality, however, it happened differently.
The invention of the cotton gin (gin), which greatly accelerated the cleaning of cotton, caused the rise of cotton growing and significantly increased the demand for slaves, and the beginning of the industrial revolution in Europe, and then in the United States, further increased the demand for both cotton and slaves. The price of a slave rose from $300 in 1795 to $900 in 1849 and to $1,500 to $2,000 on the eve of the Civil War. The intensification of slave labor and the exploitation of slaves increased sharply.
All this led to a new aggravation of class contradictions, to a new rise in the liberation movement of blacks and their white allies. The wave of black uprisings that swept through the first half of the 19th century. the entire south of the United States, was also associated with the revolutionary movement of blacks in the West Indies at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. By the 30s of the 19th century. refers to the formation in the United States of a nationwide organized abolitionist movement (the movement of supporters of black liberation).
Prominent abolitionist leaders were William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Harrison (1805-1879) is credited with creating the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in 1833 and a whole network of abolitionist societies, the number of which in the 50s of the 19th century. exceeded 2 thousand. The American Anti-Slavery Society united both white abolitionists and free blacks. The society's declaration, adopted at a convention in Philadelphia in December 1833, stated that slavery in which Americans held their fellow citizens was contrary to "the principles of natural justice, republican government and the Christian religion, undermines the welfare of the country and threatens the peace, union and liberties states." Further, a demand was put forward for the immediate liberation of blacks, without resettlement to Africa, by “convincing fellow citizens with arguments addressed to their reason and conscience” 1 .
The main demand contained in the declaration - the demand for the immediate release of slaves without ransom and without expatriation - was revolutionary. The weakness of the society's program lies in the lack of understanding of the real path to the liberation of blacks, in the refusal of political struggle and the overestimation of the role of moral exhortation and propaganda.
W.-L. Harrison published and edited for 34 years until 1865 central authority abolitionist magazine "Liberator", which denounced slavery and slave owners. The first issue of the magazine was published in 1831, the year of the slave rebellion led by Nat Turner.
Douglas (1817-1895), an illustrious black leader, was vice president of the Anti-Slavery Society. His mother is a black slave, his father is white; Douglas himself and his brothers and sisters were slaves. In 1838, Douglas fled to the North and became a remarkable public figure - a fighter for his people, for their political organization, a brilliant speaker and writer. Beginning in 1838, Douglas published the most popular pre-Civil War newspaper, the North Star, later known as the Frederick Douglass' paper.
Abolitionism was not a homogeneous movement. Here, the struggle of farmers and workers against slavery, the activities of part of the northern industrial bourgeoisie interested in the elimination of slavery as economically unprofitable, and the sincere indignation of the liberal, democratically minded intelligentsia at the shame of slavery merged into a single democratic front. The most active abolitionists were the blacks themselves. There were serious disagreements between various currents in the abolitionist movement on many political issues, and, in particular, on the issue of the use of force in the fight against slavery - disagreements that later led to a split.
The activities of the abolitionists took place in an atmosphere of terror and persecution from the planters and their accomplices. Nuyasha had extraordinary courage to oppose slavery not only in the southern states, but also in the North. Thus, in 1837, prominent abolitionist I. Lovejoy was killed in the northern state of Illinois.
Among the abolitionists, the names of Wendell Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel “Uncle Tom's Cabin” (1851) significantly contributed to gathering the forces of the abolitionists, and others should also be mentioned. American Marxists Joseph Weidemeyer, Friedrich Sorge, Adolf played a major role in the abolitionist movement Douay and others. Some of them fought during the Civil War in the ranks of the northerners.
A significant contribution to the development of the abolitionist movement was made by pamphlets and books by Negro abolitionists: the famous “Walker's Appeal”, 1829, which called slaves to an armed uprising, articles and open letters by G. Garnet, pamphlets by W. Nell, an appeal by F. Douglas “Claims of Negroes ethnologically concerned”, 1854 and others. W. W. Brown and D. Pennington traveled to cities in the USA and other countries, conducting propaganda against slavery and collecting funds, necessary for the fight.
One of the most remarkable figures of the abolitionist movement is the former slave Harriet Tubman, an active participant in the “secret road” (underground railway). The "Secret Road" was a chain of refuges for fugitive slaves on their way from the slave states to Canada. Thousands of blacks and whites took part in the work of the “secret road,” many of whom are known only by pseudonyms. Making trip after trip from the southern states to the North, G. Tubman personally freed over 300 blacks from slavery and inspired thousands to escape. In 1856, the planters announced a reward of 40 thousand dollars for the head of G. Tubman, but they failed to seize it. During the Civil War, G. Tubman fought in the northern troops and in partisan detachments.
By the middle of the 19th century. slavery has become obsolete. The invention of spinning machines and the introduction of various technical improvements increased labor productivity in industry and sharply increased the need for cotton. The labor of slaves, even under conditions of the most severe exploitation, remained unproductive; its productivity did not meet the new requirements of industry. The slavery system also hampered the development of capitalism in the United States and the formation of a single internal national market. The abolition of slavery thus became a necessary condition for the further development of capitalism. In addition, by denying all human rights to part of the people, the slavery system was a threat to the welfare and civil liberties of the entire American people and caused growing protest among blacks and a broad movement against slavery among various segments of the American population.
However, the planters were not going to voluntarily give up power. In 1820, as a result of the Missouri Compromise, they achieved the establishment of the boundary of slavery at 36 ° 30 "north latitude. In 1850, under pressure from the planters, Congress adopted new law on fugitive slaves, much more severe than the 1793 law. 1 J and in 1854, thanks to the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, which left the issue of slavery in a given new territory to the settlers themselves, any legal barriers to the spread of slavery throughout the United States were destroyed. However, all this in turn led to increased slave unrest and the growth of the abolitionist movement in the decade leading up to the Civil War.
The outbreak of the Civil War in the United States was civil war in Kansas, followed by John Brown's Rebellion (1859). Brown (1800-1859), a white farmer from Richmond (Ohio), a prominent abolitionist and leader of the "Secret Road", planned to make a campaign in Virginia, raise a general uprising of slaves and form a free state in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia as a base for the fight for freeing all slaves. On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown with a small detachment of 22 people (five of them blacks) moved to Harpers Ferry and captured the arsenal. However, John Brown's campaign turned out to be insufficiently prepared. Left without support, Brown's detachment was surrounded and defeated after a fierce battle. John Brown, severely wounded, was captured, charged with treason and inciting slaves to revolt, and sentenced to hang. In his last speech At the trial, Brown denied all the charges brought against him and pleaded guilty to only one charge - the intention to free slaves 2.
The execution of John Brown caused an explosion of indignation throughout the world, and brought closer the crisis that erupted in 1861. The first blow was dealt by the planters: in 1860, after the election of President A. Lincoln, a representative of the North, they announced the secession of a number of southern states from the Union , and at the beginning of 1861 they attacked the northern troops at Fort Sumter. Thus began the civil war between North and South.
In the civil war of 1861-1865. the tasks were the bourgeois-democratic transformation of society, the abolition of slavery and the transfer of political and economic power throughout the country into the hands of the industrialists of the North. In the article “The Civil War in North America,” K. Marx characterized the situation as follows: “ Modern wrestling between the South and the North there is... nothing more than a struggle between two social systems- the system of slavery and the system of free labor... It can only end in the victory of one of these systems” 3 .
The war became protracted due to the indecisive policies of the government of Abraham Lincoln, which reflected the real contradictions of the forces confronted in the war, and at the same time the hesitations of the bourgeoisie. Lincoln saw the main goal of the war in preserving the union of states, in returning the 11 rebellious states of the South to the union, and not in the abolition of slavery. And only when the northerners suffered a series of defeats and the situation on the fronts became threatening, under pressure from the popular masses and with the enormous activity of the blacks themselves, Lincoln signed a law on the confiscation of slaves of rebel planters (August 6, 1861), on the prohibition of the extradition of fugitive slaves (March 31, 1862). g.) and on the release with ransom of blacks in the District of Columbia (April 16, 1862). And finally, on September 22, 1862, the historic Emancipation Proclamation was published, according to which, as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states, unless the rebellion was stopped, received freedom “from now on and forever.” On January 1, 1863, slaves, although only in the seceded states, received personal freedom.
After the victory of the northerners and the liberation of the blacks the most important issue There was a question about the restructuring of all political and economic life in the South, the question about the reconstruction of the South. In March 1865, the Bureau of freedmen, refugees and abandoned lands was established, headed by General O.-O. Howard. The Bureau's tasks included comprehensive assistance to freed blacks in new conditions. The bureau existed until 1868, and its activities had a great positive impact.
However, the blacks were released without ransom, but also without land and without means of subsistence. Large plantation landownership was not destroyed, the political power of slave owners was only shaken for a while, but not broken. And although the blacks themselves took part in the struggle for their liberation with arms in hand, although over 200 thousand blacks fought in the army of the northerners and 37 thousand of them died in this war, the blacks received neither real freedom, nor, moreover, equality. Having freed themselves from slavery to the planters, they fell into bondage to the same planters and were forced to work under enslaving conditions for their former masters as hired workers or tenants. “Slavery is abolished, long live slavery!” - this is how one of the reactionary figures of that era defined the situation.
After the assassination of Lincoln on April 14, 1865 and the coming to power of E. Johnson, who pursued a policy of concessions towards the planters, reaction in the southern states again raised its head. In 1865-1866, the so-called “Black codes” were introduced in various states of the South, essentially restoring the slavery of blacks. Typical, for example, are the laws passed in 1865 in the state of Mississippi 1 . Under these laws, blacks, under penalty of life imprisonment, were denied the right to marry whites, were prohibited from carrying weapons, blacks' civil liberties were curtailed, and their right to own land was limited. In almost all southern states, blacks' voting rights were contested, and blacks were virtually excluded from participation in political life. According to the Apprentice law, all blacks - teenagers under 18 years of age, without parents, or children of poor parents (poor minors), were given into the service of whites, who could forcibly keep them in service, return them in case of escape in court and subject to corporal punishment. Blacks were allowed only to the most difficult and dirty jobs. Many states had Vagrant laws, under which blacks who were not employed were declared vagrants, imprisoned and sent to convict brigades, or forcibly returned to work for their former planters. Vagrancy laws were applied extremely widely, and they were always given an interpretation that suited the planters. In the southern states, a system of indentured servitude flourished, the use of convict labor, who were often chained and had to perform road-building or other hard work carried out in a particular state. A “system of social isolation and segregation (separation) of blacks, a system of Jim Crowism 2 , was also established. This meant that blacks could settle only in certain, strictly limited areas, visit only certain and lower-class hotels, restaurants, theaters, and travel only in cars marked “for coloreds.” This meant thousands of small and large humiliations to which blacks are still subjected to one degree or another in modern America.
The result of a mass movement of protest by both blacks and white Republicans against the “black codes” and events in the US South was the approval by Congress of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery (1865), the 14th Amendment on the civil rights of blacks (1868) and the 15th Amendment. 1st Negro Suffrage Amendment (1870). In 1867-1868 Congress approved laws on the reconstruction of the South, according to which the southern states were divided into five military districts and a military dictatorship was introduced there, carried out by northern troops. The states elected their provisional authorities on the basis of universal suffrage (including blacks), and Confederates, former active participants in the rebellion, were deprived of the right to vote. Blacks found themselves elected to legislative bodies in a number of states. Thus, G. Epteker points out 1 that in the state of Mississippi after the elections of 1870 there were 30 blacks in the House of Representatives, and five in the Senate. “In 1866,” writes W. Foster about the South, “a decade of the most extensive democratic development of the states began, the like of which had never been seen before or since” 2 . During this period, a number of progressive bourgeois-democratic transformations were carried out: universal suffrage for men and new rights for women were established, a state school system and a system for providing for the elderly were created, civil equality was introduced, the “black codes” were abolished, etc.
But the main task of the revolution - the redistribution of land, the destruction of the plantation economy, and thereby the political and economic power and dominance of slave owners - was not solved. This made it possible for the reaction in the southern states to gather forces and go on the offensive. Numerous terrorist groups began to form, committing murders, beatings and other acts of violence against blacks and their white allies and inciting racial hatred.
One such group was the Ku Klux Klan, organized in 1865 in Tennessee. The Ku Klux Klan 3 arose as a counter-revolutionary terrorist organization of slave owners to suppress and intimidate freed blacks. The Ku Klux Klan was a secret organization, its activities were surrounded by an atmosphere of mystery, and the ritual of Masonic lodges was adopted 4 . Dressed in steel traditional shape- white robes with slits for the eyes and mouth, with a cross on the chest, on dark nights the “knights” of the Ku Klux Klan committed their bloody and dirty deeds - raids, arson, murders - and disappeared without a trace. They killed blacks and progressive white leaders and organized pogroms against blacks. One of the bloodiest pogroms occurred in 1866 in New Orleans.
The favorite method of the Ku Klux Klan was lynching. Lynching 1 - lynching, cruel and bloody reprisal without trial. Lynching is not just murder. It is accompanied by the most sophisticated sadistic torture and abuse of the victim, who is usually hanged or burned alive, doused with kerosene or pitch. Lynching was used by planters to establish a regime of terror over freed blacks. In 1871, the terror of the Ku Klux Klan reached such proportions that President W. Grant was forced to appoint an investigation and issue a law banning the Ku Klux Klan. After this, the Ku Klux Klan went underground, but its criminal activities did not stop.
Having achieved their goals and fearing a further deepening of the revolution, the bourgeoisie of the North made a deal with slave owners to organize a united front against the labor and farmer movement and the national liberation struggle of the black people. By the 80s of the XIX century. a conspiracy took shape between the capitalists of the North and the planters of the South, which in history is called the compromise, or betrayal, by Hayes - Tilden (1877). Hayes, the presidential candidate of the Republican Party, the party of the northern bourgeoisie, received the support of the planters and was elected president after promising to withdraw northern troops from the South. This compromise ended the reconstruction period.
Liberated blacks found themselves in extremely difficult conditions in the South. The American bourgeoisie “... tried, on the basis of “free” republican-democratic capitalism, to restore everything possible, to do everything possible and impossible for the most shameless and vile oppression of blacks... Isolation, callousness, lack of fresh air, some kind of prison for the “liberated” blacks - that’s what the American South is,” wrote V.I. Lenin 2.
Most blacks continued to work as sharecroppers in the cotton fields and on farms, often owned by their previous owners or their children. The sharecropping system that developed in the southern states after the Civil War left the tenant completely at the mercy of the landowner. The sharecropper had no property, no land, no means of production, no livestock, no money, nothing except labor. Sharecroppers lived in deep poverty, paying the planter half and sometimes two-thirds of the harvest for the right to use the land. At the same time, “black codes” were being restored everywhere in the southern states and laws were being introduced that, under one pretext or another, would deprive blacks of voting and civil rights. Segregation of blacks and whites is again established in public places, in schools, etc.
The US entry into the stage of imperialism was marked by an intensification of reaction in all areas of life. Anti-Negro protests and pogroms also became more frequent. The lynching curve went up sharply. At the same time, literary pogromists (Dixon, Page, etc.) spoke out, whose works contained direct calls for reprisals against blacks. The tried and tested ideological weapon of the slave owners was again put into use - the “theory” of white supremacy. The reactionary forces of capitalism found more and more new forms of enslavement of the black population, considering them as a source of super-profits. By 1915, the Ku Klux Klan was reorganized and turned into a weapon in the struggle of big capital and monopolies against the communists, the trade union movement, the black national liberation movement and against other progressive forces in America.
During the First World War, in order to justify the US entry into the imperialist massacre and to attract blacks into the army, the American bourgeoisie declared its goal to protect world civilization, culture and democracy from the German barbarians and promised the blacks to radically change their situation after the war. Many blacks were deceived by these promises. Over 400 thousand blacks served in the American army during the First World War. Hundreds of American blacks received the highest French, Belgian and American awards for bravery and courage. But when black soldiers began to understand the aggressive, unjust goals and essence of the First World War, they refused to sail overseas and serve as cannon fodder for the interests of the American imperialists. Thus, in August 1917, rebel soldiers of a black regiment in Houston (Texas) killed officers and refused to go to Europe. The uprising was brutally suppressed, many black soldiers were shot, and 200 soldiers were sentenced to long-term hard labor.
When the war ended and the black soldiers returned to America, nothing had changed for them. Negroes who had entered factories during the war were now fired. In connection with the post-war crisis, the situation of black farmers and agricultural laborers, in particular, deteriorated sharply. Many black soldiers who returned from the army were lynched because they dared to go out into the streets in military uniforms and with orders. Frightened by the ever-increasing anger of the black people, the American bourgeoisie switched to methods of direct violence and inspired in 1917 and 1919. mass black pogroms that swept across the country. The pogrom in St. Louis in the summer of 1917 was especially bloody. In 1919, real street battles took place in Chicago, where the rioters were repulsed by black workers and former soldiers.
The acute discontent and indignation of the black soldiers, the petty bourgeoisie and part of the workers and farm laborers was used by the adventurer Mark Garvey, who led the movement of blacks to return to Africa 1 . Garvey's reactionary utopian bourgeois-nationalist slogans - the creation of an African black empire, "Africa for Africans" - did not receive the support of the advanced part of the black people. It was soon discovered that Garvey had entered into an agreement with the Ku Klux Klan and secured its non-interference in its affairs by declaring his organization anti-communist. These revelations caused a mass exodus of blacks from Garvist organizations. After Garvey's arrest for fraud with public money, Garveyism gradually fades away. In the 1920s, the black nationalist movement weakened due to America's entry into the so-called "prosperity" period.
The crisis of 1929-1933, which unfolded on the basis of the general crisis of the capitalist economic system, put an end to illusions about the strength of American “prosperity” and caused a further intensification of the class struggle. In these years, with greater clarity than ever before in America, there is a demarcation between the forces of democracy and progress, on the one hand, and the forces of reaction and fascism, on the other. Numerous fascist and pro-fascist organizations and groups are appearing in the USA, the lynching curve is going up again (according to official data, in the 1920s 19-20 lynchings were recorded per year, in 1631 - 79, in 1934 - 84), there was the anti-lynching law was failed in the Senate due to the obstruction of southern senators (to remove lynching cases from the jurisdiction of individual state courts and transfer them to federal authorities and the federal court). But the 1930s were a period of growing unity and organization of the American working class, which it demonstrated in enormous mass strikes. It was a time of great political activity of the American proletariat and advanced intelligentsia, especially in election campaigns 1932 and 1936, when the Communist Party of the USA nominated its candidates William Foster and the black communist James Ford.
In the 1930s, the nature of the black liberation movement changed. Until then, the liberation movement was led by the black bourgeoisie, which sought to direct it along a false, bourgeois-nationalist path. Now the leader of the movement is the black proletariat, which grew up as a result of the proletarianization of blacks and their movement to the industrial areas of the North during the First World War and after it.
For the first time in the broad labor movement of the 1930s, black workers felt part of the American working class. Their struggle against racial discrimination joined the common front of the struggle against capitalist slavery. That is why American workers responded so passionately to the trials in Scottsboro, Alabama, in 1931, and in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1937. In 1931, nine black men were sentenced to death in Scottsboro on false charges of raping white women. young men, the youngest of whom was thirteen years old, and the eldest had barely reached nineteen. The joint action of white and black workers, the protest of the public around the world forced the US Supreme Court to reconsider the case; seven young men were released, two were sentenced to prison, but their lives were saved.
In Atlanta, the black communist Angelo Herndon, who organized a joint demonstration of white and black unemployed people in 1932 and proclaimed the class solidarity of workers regardless of skin color, was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor under the sedition law introduced during the Civil War. A widespread protest campaign by workers in America and around the world forced the court to release Herndon on bail. IN the shortest possible time The amount required to post bail was collected in the form of voluntary donations. And in July 1937, the law under which Angelo Herndon was convicted was declared unconstitutional.
In 1936-1938, when the people were fighting in Spain against the fascist rebels, the Negro Committee for Assistance to Spanish Democracy was created. Many blacks fought in the ranks of the volunteers of the International Brigade. Some of them died heroic deaths in this struggle - Alonzo Watson, Oliver Lowe, Milton Herndon (brother of Angelo Herndon), etc.
During these years, the American Communist Party carried out a great deal of explanatory and organizational work among blacks, the only party that consistently defended the interests of the black people to the end. At the call of the Communist Party, a powerful demonstration was held on March 6, 1930, and a number of other demonstrations of white and black unemployed people. Communists involved black workers and sharecroppers in the strike movement, fought in trade unions against discrimination against blacks carried out by reactionary leaders, and led campaigns for the liberation of the Scottsboro boys and Angelo Herndon. Numerous books and pamphlets by American communists popularized the Communist Party's point of view on the Negro question 1 .
During the years of the so-called “New Deal,” blacks achieved some specific concessions from the government of F. D. Roosevelt, who attracted individual blacks to the government apparatus, albeit in minor positions. However, the Roosevelt government did not carry out any significant reforms - lynching and segregation were not legally prohibited, the poll tax, which exists in many states, and discrimination against blacks, etc. were not abolished.
Blacks took part in the Second World War; they hated fascism and its racist theories and understood that if there was no democracy for them now, then it would be even worse if fascism won. Great value There was also the fact that the United States acted in the Second World War in the same camp with Soviet Union- a country of freedom and equality of nations.
About 1 million blacks joined or were drafted into the US Army during this war. In the liberation struggle against fascism, blacks showed themselves to be excellent soldiers, many of them were awarded orders and medals for military valor. However, the policies of racial discrimination, segregation and Jim Crowism continued to be official policy ruling circles USA. Blacks were discriminated against even during conscription and service. They were passing military service in special units, they tried not to admit them to naval and flight schools, they tried not to give them special qualifications. Thus, of the 19 thousand blacks who served in the navy, over 4 thousand were used as cooks and waiters, and the rest in hard non-combatant work. In most cases, the so-called Negro aviation units also did auxiliary work. By the end of the Second World War, only 8,600 blacks had officer ranks (of which: 1 general and 34 colonels and lieutenant colonels; the highest rank of a black in the navy was lieutenant).
Discrimination against blacks especially intensified after the end of the Second World War due to the general offensive of reaction in the United States. On August 27, 1949, in Peekskill, near New York, a fascist provocation was committed against the black people and the solidarity of American workers. On this day, a gang of fascist hooligans attacked spectators who had gathered to listen to the songs of the wonderful black singer and progressive public figure Paul Robeson, and wanted to lynch him. Over the course of the whole evening, several dozen whites and blacks selflessly fought off the attacks of drunken thugs, who acted with the connivance of the police. However, the brazen attack of the American fascists did not intimidate the working people. Exactly a week later, on September 3, a Paul Robeson concert took place in Peekskill, which was attended by at least 25 thousand people. This was a great victory for the progressive people of the United States. The concert was guarded by special detachments of black and white volunteer workers who thwarted all attempts by hooligans to stop Robeson from singing.
1955-1956 marked by a new upsurge in the black struggle for freedom and equality. The national liberation movement of the black people is one of the most widespread democratic movements in modern America. As indicated in the draft resolution of the XVI Congress of the Communist Party of the USA 1, the current stage of development of the black liberation movement is characterized, in particular, by the increased role of the black urban population and the black proletariat, the strengthening of ties with the trade union movement, the transfer of the center of struggle to the South, to the citadel of racism, where in connection with industrialization, the number of workers has increased significantly and where, along with black workers, broad sections of the intelligentsia, priests, etc. are included in the struggle. The slogan “Achieve freedom by 1963” is now very popular among blacks. (i.e., the centennial anniversary of the liberation from slavery). Indicative facts are given, for example, in the article by Eslanda Robson 2. Negroes are intensifying their struggle in all spheres of life: moving from the ghetto to nearby “white” areas, despite the fierce resistance of the Ku Klux Klan, fighting stubbornly in trade unions, etc. Negro political figures began a campaign against racist congressmen, seeking their recall from Congress.
Blacks began to realize their political power. Nowadays, headed by priest M.-JI, is becoming increasingly widespread. King's movement to ensure that at least 5 million blacks from the southern states took part in the 1960 presidential elections. Blacks intend to exercise their political rights and force the government to abandon its policy of racial discrimination. Blacks also realized their great economic strength, successfully using it in economic boycotts. For example, blacks in Montgomery (Alabama) showed excellent endurance and organization, where for a year from December 1955 the population boycotted a bus company that discriminated against blacks. Rallies were held throughout the country in support of Montgomery blacks and funds were raised. Local authorities arrested and tried 90 boycott leaders, including all the city's black priests, on charges of conspiracy. But they failed to break or intimidate the blacks. The struggle ended in victory for the black population of Montgomery, which forced the bus company in December 1956 to abolish discriminatory practices and segregation. Similar boycotts were carried out in other cities in the South.
On May 17, 1954, as a result of many years of struggle by blacks and all democratic forces in the United States, as well as strong pressure from world public opinion, the US Supreme Court decided to prohibit racial segregation in public schools. However, the implementation of this decision was largely left to the blacks themselves.
In Washington and some cities in the states of Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky and others, notable successes have been achieved 3 . But in the far South there are reactionary local authorities refused to comply with the decision of the Supreme Court, as a result of which an extremely tense situation was created in the southern states. Serious clashes occurred in a number of cities and federal troops were brought in to restore order.
Nevertheless, the blacks are determined to achieve their rights. This is evidenced, for example, by the grand demonstration that took place in Washington at the Lincoln Monument on May 17, 1957, on the third anniversary of the Supreme Court decision banning segregation. On this day, more than 50 thousand blacks came from all over the country to Washington to express their protest against anti-Negro terror in the southern states and to declare their solidarity with those fighting for civil rights and freedom.
The events that took place in September 1957 in Little Rock (Arkansas), where the racist governor Faubus tried to forcefully prevent nine black children from entering a school that previously accepted only whites, became known throughout the world. The actions of Faubus and the outrages of local Ku Klux Klansmen caused enormous indignation throughout the country. Federal troops were sent to Little Rock. For three months, black schoolchildren went to school under the guard of soldiers, bravely fighting their way through the ranks of brutal hooligans, and won a difficult victory.
On the side of American blacks are all the honest people of the United States and the whole world who understand that the struggle of American blacks for freedom and equality is part of the general struggle against imperialism, racism and colonial oppression that is going on all over the world.
On February 1, 1865, the process that abolished slavery began in the United States. Today, when issues of tolerance and racial tolerance are relevant throughout the world, it is useful to remember how slavery was destroyed in the United States.
Thirteenth Amendment
For American slaves, thirteen turned out to be a lucky number. According to the text of the amendment, slavery and forced labor were prohibited in the United States and places under its jurisdiction. Interestingly, this did not apply to criminals, who could be “turned” into slaves as punishment. The Thirteenth Amendment was adopted by the American Congress during the Civil War on January 31, 1865. It then went through the stages of ratification and entry into force. Amendments were also made to the second section of Section 4 of the article, which dealt with facilitating the escape of slaves.
A year ago
With the entry into force of the Thirteenth Amendment to the American Constitution in December 1865, the beginning of the destruction of the system that had existed in Britain's American colonies since 1619 was laid. During 1865, 27 states adopted the amendment, enough to make it lawful. However, some states ratified the document much later: Kentucky only in 1976, and Mississippi in 2013. So, in fact, slavery in all states of America officially ceased to exist only in February last year.
Thanks Spielberg
Some Southern states refused to accept the amendment outright. In Mississippi, a vote to ratify the amendment was held only in 1995, but the matter was not completed. The reasons why authorities did not file official documents with the Archivist of the United States are still unknown. The “error” was discovered by accident by Professor Ranjan Batra, who, after watching Spielberg’s film “Lincoln,” decided to check when each state adopted the amendment. And he discovered such a paradoxical thing: the Mississippi authorities ratified the amendment, but did not properly complete the documentation.
Lincoln
Lincoln is the liberator of American slaves. This saying is well known to everyone from school. However, the most important thing for Lincoln was not the abolition of slavery, but the salvation of the Union. He wrote: “If I could save the Union without freeing a single slave, I would do it, and if I had to free all the slaves to save it, I would do it too.” During the course of a protracted war, full of failures, there was a change in presidential views: from the gradual emancipation of slaves on a compensatory basis to the complete abolition of slavery. The amendment not only changed the nature of the war, which now became “liberation”, but also allowed the army to be fed with new blood: by the end of the war there were 180 thousand former slaves.
Supply and demand"
The main “supplier” of slaves was Africa. In total, from 1500 to 1900, according to various estimates, up to 16.5 million people were brought to the United States; in total, the African continent lost 80 million people during its history. The top “leaders” included Central Africa, the Bights of Benin and Biafra. At the end of the 17th century, every fourth ship flying the British flag carried slaves on board. Of the five slaves, only one made it "safely" to his new "home", dying during a "man hunt" or as a result of the appalling conditions of transportation. The leading market players were the British - they transported 2.5 million people to America, followed by the French (1.2 million) and the Dutch (500 thousand). But the most active were the Portuguese - their “catch” amounted to 4.5 million people.
We are not slaves! Slaves are not us!
In the early 90s of the last century, Nobel laureate in economics Robert William Fogel proved that in the first half of the 19th century, slave labor in the United States was more efficient than labor free people. His research demonstrated that in 1860 agriculture The South, using slave labor, was 35% more efficient than the agriculture of the North, which was based on free labor. Vogel also concluded that the cause of the Civil War was not the economic inefficiency of slavery, but the attitude of freedom-loving Americans who were unwilling to accept slavery as a system. By the middle of the 19th century, the abolitionist movement for the abolition of slavery, which had previously used mainly “peaceful” methods, began to resort to more radical steps.
"Freedom Trains"
In the 50s of the 19th century, the name of the former slave Frederick Douglass was known to every slave who dreamed of freedom. The underground worker Douglas and his supporters organized an illegal channel through which slaves were transported from the South to Canada or the Northern states: through safe houses, fugitive slaves were “transferred” on the “hand to hand” principle. Safehouses were called “stations,” and those who accompanied runaway slaves were called “conductors.” The most famous "conductor" Harriet Tubman, a former slave, saved 300 people. If the “thieves” were arrested, they would face an inevitable death penalty. It is not known what appeared first: the railway terminology that the underground used for the code, or the legend of the “freedom train”, which allegedly moved through a tunnel built by abolitionists and transported fugitives. Historians claim that the “subway” transported about 60 thousand slaves before the start of the Civil War.
Knows many tragic and dark moments. On the path to progress and enlightenment, almost all races resorted to such a terrible form of social development as slavery. The United States also did not escape this dark phase in its eventful history. Since the founding of this country, slavery in the United States has become an integral part and norm of American life.
The United States developed perhaps the strangest form of slavery in history. Formed in the depths of American capitalism, slavery reflected its formation in the agrarian young country. American planters, due to the extreme scarcity of the labor market, were forced to resort to the exploitation of black slaves.
The use of slave labor left an indelible mark on the plantation bourgeoisie, turning them into perhaps the strangest and most unusual slave-owning class in the history of the planet. The American planters of that time were an unimaginable and completely bizarre synthesis of typically capitalist and slaveholding traits.
Slavery in the United States is a complex complex of socio-economic, civil, ideological, racial and socio-political problems, the roots of which lie in the depths of American history. The emergence of this form of social development is due primarily to the presence of endless land spaces on the territory, which created the most favorable conditions for the development of the agricultural sector and its movement along the path of free enterprise.
It is not for nothing that all the prerequisites for the formation of such a liberal form of slavery as patriarchal slavery, in which black slaves were considered simply powerless members of the families of white planters, were formed here. This mainly applies to the northern states. In the south, things were somewhat different. Classic slavery flourished here. On the eve of the Civil War, which put an end to this form of social development, 89% of black slaves lived in the South.
The last state to ratify the abolition of slavery was the southern state of Mississippi. Plantation slavery in the United States, being a commercially profitable enterprise that brought fabulous profits to the rising class of American capitalists, lasted for almost two and a half centuries and caused sharp contradictions in the economic and political spheres between the North American and southern states. Slavery in the United States served not only the purposes of enrichment and development of the agrarian economy, but also to strengthen the political and social influence of large slave-owning planters.
And it all started with the Dutch slave traders. A little later to this profitable business British shipowners also got involved. The first Dutch ship with “living goods” landed on the coast of the North American continent at the end of the summer of 1619. He delivered twenty black slaves, who were immediately purchased by wealthy white colonists. From that moment on, advertisements for the sale of “live goods” began to appear regularly in port cities and towns. Until, finally, in 1863 it was adopted where, in particular, the inadmissibility of the use of slave labor was mentioned.
In one form or another, slavery existed among all peoples, but most of them overcame this stage of social development at fairly early stages.
At the same time, the colonial plantation system, based on the exploitation of slave labor, mainly of African origin, operated on the American continent until the second half of the 19th century.
The emergence of slavery in the countries of the New World
New continents discovered during the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries were actively colonized by the states of the Old World. The most active colonialists were from Britain, Portugal, Spain and France, who in the 15th-16th centuries seized vast lands in North and South America.
However, in order to make a profit from the ownership of these lands, a large number of cheap, preferably free, labor was required. The local population was not very suitable for enslavement, fiercely resisting forced labor.
At the first stages of colonial development, criminals and poor people brought from the metropolis were often made slaves on agricultural plantations and manufactories. However, this resource was extremely limited, and then the New World feudal lords were offered strong and fairly obedient black slaves brought from Africa.
Over four centuries, from 1500 to 1900, historians estimate that about 16.5 million black slaves were brought from Africa. However, there were many more of those who lost their freedom and died along the way. During this period, the African continent lost about 80 million people - mostly strong, healthy men and women. Only every fifth future slave reached the shores of America; the rest died due to lack of food, disease and terrible conditions in the holds of slave traders' ships. 
The leading role in the “ebony” trade, as traders called slaves, belonged to the Portuguese - they transported about 4.5 million people to the plantations of the New World. The second place in terms of the scale of the slave trade was taken by the British - they were responsible for more than one and a half million Africans enslaved.
The French brought about 1.2 million slaves to the colonies, and the Dutch brought approximately 500 thousand blacks. These figures, most likely, do not fully reflect the real scope of trade in “live goods”, since they are based only on surviving documentary evidence.
Slavery in the US economy
Despite the fact that the United States, from the moment of its formation, proclaimed itself the territory of freedom, the Constitution adopted in 1787 explicitly legalized slavery in its most overt form. Further development The US legal system led to the emergence of dozens of legal acts in different states, directly or indirectly enshrining the institution of slavery.
The economic basis of slavery was the growing demand for colonial goods - sugar and tobacco, and later cotton. In the 18th-19th centuries, the need for raw cotton and cheap fabrics made from it grew at an unprecedented rate, which was the basis of an ugly but very viable union of the capitalist system and slavery.
The exploitation of slaves assumed enormous proportions and became as sophisticated as possible. After the ban on the importation of blacks in the early 19th century, many slave farms appeared in the United States, and human trafficking brought more profit than the cultivation of cotton or sugar cane. 
Slavery was concentrated primarily in the southern states of the United States, where climatic conditions favored plantation farming, which required many workers.
The northern states at this time were developing industry, and for them it was more profitable to have free movement of labor to participate in the construction of roads and enterprises. It was this contradiction that served as the real reason for the civil war between the North and the South, known to us from numerous books and films.
Emancipation of slaves in the USA
By the middle of the 19th century, a dual situation had developed in the United States: there was no slavery in the northern states, but the law obliged all US citizens, without exception, to help capture fugitive slaves, and severe punishment was provided for those who harbored fugitive slaves or contributed to their escape.
Southerners hoped to extend the legality of slavery throughout the United States, but after the victory of A. Lincoln, an opponent of slavery, in the elections in 1860, they announced the withdrawal of the southern states from the Union. A civil war began, which lasted four years and ended with the defeat of the slave states.
At the beginning of the war, A. Lincoln and the Republican Party he led did not express a sharp rejection of slavery as such, limiting themselves to demanding its ban in those territories where it had not existed before, and in new states joining the United States.
However, political developments forced him to radically oppose slavery, which allowed the Northerners to make many blacks their allies. More than 180 thousand former slaves joined the army of the North, and the victory was achieved in no small part thanks to the policy of complete abolition of slavery. 
In January 1865, the United States Congress adopted the famous Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which finally and unconditionally abolished slavery throughout the country. In December of the same year it came into force, and slavery was ended. This date is considered the date of the abolition of slavery in the United States.
However, some states did not immediately ratify the Thirteenth Amendment in their territories. Thus, in Kentucky, the official abolition of slavery took place only in 1976. The state of Mississippi approved the abolition of slavery at the legal level in 2013. This year is formally the date of the abolition of slavery in the United States.
