Free African American life in America before the civil war

Free African American life in America before the civil war

Introduction

The issue of slavery in the American Civil War is a controversial issue in the historiography, since no analysis some "definitive" measure on the relationship between the American Civil War and slavery in the United States. Thus, any position taken towards the resolution of this issue can, to a greater or lesser degree, find support in some bibliography, important document.

At the origin of the war has been, crudely, the two opposing slavery and economic models. The North in economic expansion thanks to industrialization, to protect the internal market and labor-free work and employment, and a south based on slavery and the plantation economy. The differences between the states of North and South, unlike the dichotomy made by some scholars, are not as pronounced as Lewis says C. Gray:

"Gray considers the system of plantation inextricably linked to the development of international capitalism emphasizes the need for plantation of broad application of capital, a strong tendency to specialize in a single crop and marketing, and states that these factors were similar to the industrial revolution.”

The origin of dividing the United States into "North" and "South" date from colonial times, when the area that now constitutes the United States was still a colony of three countries - Spain , France and UK . Primarily, these differences began due to geographic differences in the region of the Thirteen British Colonies. In the south, the first occupants of the region found a climate hot and soil fertile, ideal for growing tobacco. Large tobacco plantations were cultivated and hand-slave labor was brought in large quantities of the African continent. Subsequently, cotton and sugar cane began to be grown in these states. Quickly, agriculture under the Plantation system and style of primarily rural life came to dominate the states of South.

Meanwhile, the cold weather and rocky soil of the Northern States proved ill suited to the practice of agriculture. This forced the settlers of this region to seek other sources of income such as trade and manufacturing, thereby facilitating the creation of large commercial cities like Boston, Philadelphia and New York - and though, in the year of the beginning of the American Revolution of 1776, the Most of the Northern population still lived in rural areas, the economy of these states were already based primarily on trade and manufacturing.

After the independence of the United States, and until the 1850s, differences between the industrialized North Increasingly, agricultural South and Increased Gradually. In the 1850s, the United States had expanded to its current boundaries in North America. Subsequently acquire the Alaskan, Of Russia , Hawaii and other overseas territories. So, the United States was already in a phase of rapid industrialization. However, rapid economic growth was primarily concentrated in the northern states. This growth has caused the rapid population growth of cities in the region, generating major advances in transportation and communications. Despite the South Also have gone through this ...