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... American Civil War: Soldiers, African-Americans, and the HomefrontAmerican Civil
War: Soldiers, African-Americans, and the HomefrontAmerican Civil War: Soldiers ...
African Americans In The Civil War. ... 21 Oct 1989: 46 “History of African-
Americans in the Civil War.” (April 14,1999) Smith, Page. ...
... War it was never given to them. When the Civil War began, African Americans
wanted to take part in fighting to free all slaves. ...
african americans in the civil war. African-Americans in the Civil War The
foundation for black participation in the Civil War began ...
African Americans in the Civil War. The foundation for black participation in the
Civil War began more than a hundred years before the outbreak of the war. ...
Submitted by huw140269 on June 27, 2006
Category: American History
Words: 2214 | Pages: 9
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The foundation for black participation in the Civil War began more than a hundred years before the outbreak of the war. Blacks in America had been in bondage since early colonial times. In 1776, when Jefferson proclaimed mankind’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the institution of slavery had become firmly established in America. Blacks worked in the tobacco fields of Virginia, in the rice fields of South Carolina, and toiled in small farms and shops in the North. Foner and Mahoney report in A House Divided, America in the Age of Lincoln that, “In 1776, slaves composed forty percent of the population of the colonies from Maryland south to Georgia, but well below ten percent in the colonies to the North.” The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 provided a demand for cotton thus increasing the demand for slaves. By the 1800’s slavery was an institution throughout the South, an institution in which slaves had few rights, and could be sold or leased by their owners. They lacked any voice in the government and lived a life of hardship. Considering these circumstances, the slave population never abandoned the desire for freedom or the determination to resist control by the slave owners. The slave's reaction to this desire and determination resulted in outright rebellion and individual acts of defiance. However, historians place the strongest reaction in the enlisting of blacks in the war itself. Batty in The Divided Union: The Story of the Great American War, 1861-65, concur with Foner and Mahoney about the importance of outright rebellion in their analysis of the Nat Turner Rebellion, which took place in 1831. This revolt demonstrated that not all slaves were willing to accept this “institution of slavery” passively. Foner and Mahoney note that the significance of this uprising is found in its aftermath because of the numerous reports of “insubordinate” behavior by slaves. 8 Individual acts of defiance...
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