Slave states in the context of "History of slavery in Delaware"

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⭐ Core Definition: Slave states

In the United States before 1865, a free state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were prohibited, while a slave state was one in which they were legal. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states to be politically imperative that the number of free states not exceed the number of slave states, so new states were admitted in slave–free pairs. There were, nonetheless, some slaves in most free states up to the 1840 census, and the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution, as implemented by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, provided that a slave did not become free by entering a free state and must be returned to their owner. Enforcement of these laws became one of the controversies that arose between slave and free states.

By the 18th century, slavery was legal throughout the Thirteen Colonies, but at the time of the American Revolution, rebel colonies started to abolish the practice. Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1780, and about half the states had abolished slavery by the end of the Revolutionary War or in the first decades of the new country's existence, although, depending on the jurisdiction, this did not mean that all slaves became immediately free due to gradual abolition. Vermont — having declared its independence from Britain in 1777 and thus not being one of the Thirteen Colonies — banned slavery in the same year, before being admitted as a state in 1791.

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👉 Slave states in the context of History of slavery in Delaware

The history of slavery in Delaware began when it was Delaware Colony and continued until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865. The Delaware River was an important waterway used for bringing slaves inland to Pennsylvania. In 1776, Delaware prohibited the importation of slaves, and on December 7, 1787, prohibited both imports and exports of slaves from the state. Delaware never abolished slavery and in the order of admission to the Union, it was the first of the 15 slave states. However, it did not secede from the Union during the American Civil War. There were 1,798 enslaved people living in Delaware at the time of the 1860 U.S. census.

A state with a mix of enslaved people and a large population of free people of color that lay in close proximity to the slave jails of traders in Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C., legally free blacks were sometimes kidnapped into slavery, and "freedmen found it wise to deposit apprentice and freedom papers with the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in Philadelphia." For example, the Johnson–Cannon gang, whose tavern and slave pen stood on the border between Maryland and Delaware, were notorious slave stealers and murderers in the early 19th century. The state also hosted stations of the Underground Railroad to assist with escapes from slavery such as the Appoquinimink Friends Meetings House. Thomas Garrett of Wilmington, Delaware, a businessman of the Quaker faith, reportedly assisted in the escapes of between 2,000 and 3,000 slaves.

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Slave states in the context of Alabama in the American Civil War

Alabama was central to the Civil War, with the secession convention at Montgomery, the birthplace of the Confederacy, inviting other slaveholding states to form a southern republic, during January–March 1861, and to develop new state constitutions. The 1861 Alabamian constitution granted citizenship to current U.S. residents, but prohibited import duties (tariffs) on foreign goods, limited a standing military, and as a final issue, opposed emancipation by any nation, but urged protection of African-American slaves with trials by jury, and reserved the power to regulate or prohibit the African slave trade. The secession convention invited all slaveholding states to secede, but only 7 Cotton States of the Lower South formed the Confederacy with Alabama, while the majority of slave states were in the Union at the time of the founding of the Confederacy. Congress had voted to protect the institution of slavery by passing the Corwin Amendment on March 4, 1861, but it was never ratified.

Even before secession, the governor of Alabama Andrew B. Moore defied the United States government by seizing the two federal forts at the Gulf Coast (forts Morgan and Gaines) and the arsenal at Mount Vernon in January 1861 to distribute weapons to Alabama towns. The peaceful seizure of Alabama forts preceded by three months the bombing and capture of the Union's Fort Sumter (SC) on April 12, 1861.

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Slave states in the context of Black Codes (United States)

The Black Codes, also called the Black Laws, were racially segregationist and discriminatory U.S. state laws that limited the freedom of black Americans but not of white Americans. The first Black Codes applied to "free Negroes", i.e., black people who lived in states where slavery had been abolished or who lived in a slave state but were not enslaved. After chattel slavery was abolished throughout the United States in 1865, former slave states in the U.S. South enacted Black Codes to restrict all black citizens, especially the emancipated freedmen who no longer were subject to control by slaveholders.

Since the colonial period, colonies and states had passed laws that discriminated against free blacks. In the South, these were generally included in "slave codes"; the goal was to suppress the influence of free blacks (particularly after slave rebellions) because of their potential influence on slaves. Free men of color were denied the vote in the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1835. Laws prohibited activities such as bearing arms, gathering in groups for worship, and learning to read and write.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Alabama in the American Civil War ← Black Codes (United States) ← History of slavery in Delaware
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
American Civil War → United States → U.S. state → Slavery in the United States → Fugitive Slave Clause → Constitution of the United States → Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 → Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 → Thirteen Colonies → American Revolution → American Revolutionary War → Vermont → Kingdom of Great Britain →