AMERICAN REVOLUTION In the beginning of the 18th century the Great Britain started to prepare to abolish the slavery, as the attitudes in Europe were changing towards it. However, the newly established American colonies didn't share such sentiments with their parent country, as they grew to rely on the slavery and the unpaid taxes on the smuggled in goods for their newly found wealth and prosperity. Hence it was the initial rift that later escalated to a full blown war. Slavery Abolition Movement "1706: In the case of Smith v. Browne & Cooper, Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of England, rules that "as soon as a Negro comes into England, he becomes free. One may be a villein in England, but not a slave. [...] 1772: Somersett's case held that no slave could be forcibly removed from Britain. This case was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law in England and Wales, and emancipated the remaining ten to fourteen thousand slaves or possible slaves in England and Wales, who were mostly domestic servants."*1 "In 1772, Lord Mansfield's judgement in the Somersett's Case emancipated a slave in England, which helped launch the movement to abolish slavery.[2] The case ruled that slavery was unsupported by law in England and no authority could be exercised on slaves entering English or Scottish soil."*2 American Revolution - Dunmore's Proclamation "also known as Dunmore's "Emancipation Proclamation," is a historical document signed on November 7, 1775, by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, royal governor of the British Colony of Virginia. The proclamation declared martial law and promised freedom for slaves of American revolutionaries who left their owners and joined the royal forces. [... it states,] "all indentured servants, Negroes, or others...free that are able and willing to bear arms..." [...] On December 4, the Continental Congress recommended to Virginian colonists that they resist Dunmore "to the uttermost..." On December 13, the Virginia Convention responded in kind with a proclamation of its own, declaring that any slaves who returned to their masters within ten days would be pardoned, but those who did not would be punished harshly. Estimates of the number of slaves that reached Dunmore vary, but generally range between 800 and 2,000. The escaped slaves Dunmore accepted were enlisted into what was known as Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment. The only notable battle in which Dunmore's regiment participated was the Battle of Great Bridge in early December 1775, which was a decisive British loss."*3 African Americans "The British recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters and promised freedom to those who served by act of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation. Because of manpower shortages, George Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment in the Continental Army in January 1776. Small all-black units were formed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts; many slaves were promised freedom for serving. (Some of the men promised freedom were sent back to their masters, after the war was over, out of political convenience. George Washington received and ignored letters from the re-enslaved soldiers.) [...] At least 5,000 black soldiers fought for the Revolutionary cause. [although] Tens of thousands of slaves escaped during the war and joined British lines; others simply moved off in the chaos. For instance, in South Carolina, nearly 25,000 slaves (30% of the enslaved population) fled, migrated or died during the disruption of the war. This greatly disrupted plantation production during and after the war. When they withdrew their forces from Savannah and Charleston, the British also evacuated 10,000 slaves belonging to Loyalists. Altogether, the British evacuated nearly 20,000 blacks at the end of the war."*4 Native Americans "Most Native Americans east of the Mississippi River were affected by the war, and many communities were divided over the question of how to respond to the conflict. Though a few tribes were on friendly terms with the Americans, most Native Americans opposed the United States as a potential threat to their territory."*4 American Revolutionary War - George Washington "He privately opposed slavery as an institution which he viewed as economically unsound and morally indefensible. He also regarded the divisiveness of his countrymen's feelings about slavery as a potentially mortal threat to the unity of the nation. Yet, as general of the army, president of the Constitutional Convention, and the first president of the United States, he never publicly challenged the institution of slavery, possibly because he wanted to avoid provoking a split in the new republic over so inflammatory an issue. Washington had owned slaves since the death of his father in 1743, when at the age of eleven, he inherited 10 slaves. At the time of his marriage to Martha Custis in 1759, he personally owned at least 36 slaves, which meant he had achieved the status of a major planter (historians defined this in the Upper South as owning 20 or more slaves). The wealthy widow Martha brought at least 85 "dower slaves" to Mount Vernon by inheriting a third of her late husband's estate. Using his wife's great wealth, Washington bought more land, tripling the size of the plantation at Mount Vernon, and purchased the additional slaves needed to work it. By 1774, he paid taxes on 135 slaves (this figure does not include the "dowers"). The last record of a slave purchase by him was in 1772, although he later received some slaves in repayment of debts. Washington also used some hired staff and white indentured servants; in April 1775, he offered a reward for the return of two runaway white servants."*5 Declaration of Independence "In the period after the peace treaty in 1783, Loyalists were subjected to extreme suppression and acts of arbitrary violence, including murder by lynching, despite a promise by patriot leaders to British negotiators that Loyalist rights would be respected. A large proportion were driven off their land and forced to flee as refugees to Canada. Among the significant results of the revolution was the creation of a democratically-elected representative government theoretically responsible to the will of the people, but which as a result of the 'Three-Fifths Compromise' allowed the southern slaveholders to consolidate power and maintain slavery in America for another eighty years. [...] The American Declaration of Independence influenced the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789. The spirit of the Declaration of Independence led to laws ending slavery in all the Northern states and the Northwest Territory, with New Jersey the last in 1804—long before the British Parliament acted in 1833 to abolish slavery in its colonies."*8 "The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies,[2] then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America."*9 American Civil War - Abraham Lincoln "On June 19, 1862, endorsed by Lincoln, Congress passed an act banning slavery on all federal territory. In July 1862, the Second Confiscation Act was passed, which set up court procedures that could free the slaves of anyone convicted of aiding the rebellion. Although Lincoln believed it was not within Congress's power to free the slaves within the states, he approved the bill in deference to the legislature. He felt such action could only be taken by the Commander-in-Chief using war powers granted to the president by the Constitution, and Lincoln was planning to take that action. In that month, Lincoln discussed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet. In it, he stated that "as a fit and necessary military measure, on January 1, 1863, all persons held as slaves in the Confederate states will thenceforward, and forever, be free". Privately, Lincoln concluded at this point that the slave base of the Confederacy had to be eliminated. However Copperheads argued that emancipation was a stumbling block to peace and reunification. Republican editor Horace Greeley of the highly influential New York Tribune fell for the ploy, and Lincoln refuted it directly in a shrewd letter of August 22, 1862. Although he said he personally wished all men could be free, Lincoln stated that the primary goal of his actions as the U.S. president (he used the first person pronoun and explicitly refers to his "official duty") was that of preserving the Union: My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union ... [¶] I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862, and put into effect on January 1, 1863, declared free the slaves in 10 states not then under Union control, with exemptions specified for areas already under Union control in two states. Lincoln spent the next 100 days preparing the army and the nation for emancipation, while Democrats rallied their voters in the 1862 off-year elections by warning of the threat freed slaves posed to northern whites. Once the abolition of slavery in the rebel states became a military objective, as Union armies advanced south, more slaves were liberated until all three million of them in Confederate territory were freed. Lincoln's comment on the signing of the Proclamation was: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper.""*6 The Emancipation Proclamation "1834: The British Slavery Abolition Act comes into force, abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire. Legally frees 700,000 in West Indies, 20,000 in Mauritius, and 40,000 in South Africa. [...] 1863: In the United States, Abraham Lincoln issues the presidential order the Emancipation Proclamation declaring slaves in Confederate-controlled areas to be freed. Most slaves in "border states" are freed by state action; separate law freed the slaves in Washington, D.C."*1 "The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. In a single stroke it changed the legal status, as recognized by the United States federal government, of 3 million slaves in the designated areas of the South from "slave" to "free." It had the practical effect that as soon as a slave escaped the control of the Confederate government, by running away or through advances of federal troops, the slave became legally free. Eventually it reached and liberated all of the designated slaves. It was issued as a war measure during the American Civil War"*7 Rhetoric aside, there is a subtle but important difference between the freedom and the liberty. the freedom is inherent, such as the freedom to breathe, whereas liberty is issued, by the powers that be, such as liberty to apply for tax return or to vote. ___________________________________________________ "[2] - Peter P. Inks, John R. Michigan, R. Owen Williams (2007) Encyclopedia of antislavery and abolition', p. 643. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007 ' ' Blumrosen, Alfred W. and Ruth G., Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution, Sourcebooks, 2005"*2 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunmore%27s_Proclamation 4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War 5 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington#Slavery 6 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#Emancipation_Proclamation 7 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation 8 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution 9 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence