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Vianca Contreras
African American History
Professor Vaz
March 16, 2018

Dating back to the 1400s slavery is an awful part of our history. While this started

happening in different parts of the world, families were being split up and shipped to where ever

they were needed. Families were also split up by war, in doing so trying to find your family

members were close to impossible unless you were sold with your family, even then it was likely

that the father would be owned by a different salve owner than his wife and children. It was very

difficult for slaves who had been torn away from their families to get into contact or reunite with

their loved ones. There was no basic means of contacting other slaves and these people were still

slaves, they had no rights to be able to go out and search for their family. These issues were felt

by many slave and much of them were never resolved.

Slavery developed into a full scale human trade. At first, they identified you as an

indentured servant, which was working to pay off your debt, then it slowly turned in to slavery

and you were worked your whole life until you passed away into the next life. Slavery was a

growing business and expanded into North America but also within the slave’s homeland, which

varies throughout the world. Stating that they were treated as second class citizens is an

understatement considering that they were treated like property. Over time slaves had become

fed up with the brutal beatings, lack of medical attention, and the raping of the mothers and

children. African American rose up together and rebelled. In this essay I will be providing

revolutionary revolts that lead to African Americans freeing themselves from slavery, some

would say that Abraham Lincoln was against slavery and freed them, when in fact he did not.

The revolts and perseverance of African American led to their freedom.

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Nat turner is as black American slave whose owner, Samuel tunner found interest in him

due to him being able to read they took advantage of it and made him a house slave.1 They

provided him with one on one education in English and religion. Nat Turners owners had him

going around to other plantations trying to explain to other slaves that they must follow the bible

because it states that slavery wasn’t a bad thing. Needless to say, Nat Turner did not see the harsh

lives of slaves and there day to day life. Nat turner received a sign that what was going on in the

world was not good and he was choose to rise up against the slave owners along with his fellow

African Americans. August 21, 1831 Nat Turner began the revolt, killing his masters and

children. Nat turner gathered slaves from different pastors killing the owners and their children

along the way, this revolt was the domino effect of African Americans no longer allowing to be

repressed. While this revolt was very bloody and many slaves lost their lives, the rebellion was a

stepping stone towards the freedom of slaves. White men and women were in fear of their lives

for what was to come next. One would defend this argument by saying that laws and slave

owners cracked down on the “spare time” they may have, but it sparked hope and a stance on

slavery. Nat Turner was call a prophet and his story was being told in churches and among the

slave fields, leading into more revolts.

Slave rebellions were not only happening in the united states but around the world. There

were a group of African slaves called Zanj which is a Arabic for eastern Africans
African American rose up together and rebelled, these revolutionary revolts are just the

tip of the iceberg the lead to African Americans freeing themselves from slavery. Nat turner was

able to realize what was going on and took a stand for their freedom, killing the slave owners

was a stepping stone for the revolts. Another stepping stone was the Zanj rebellion, Ali bin

Muhammad encouraged slaves to stand up and go to war for their freedom while winning some

fights the slaves that were left over were asked to keep fighting and conquer more land to gain

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their freedom. The rebellions around the world soon led to positive outcomes, the Haitian

revolution being the biggest eye opener that the slaves had enough with the treatment of their

race. This revolution goes to prove how they found and succeeded in gaining their freedom, this

revolution was one of the biggest while ending with the foundation of a new country. This event

turned into a domino effect and encouraged slaves to once again not give up. Abraham Lincoln is

not the president we thought he was, going around the problem and starting small instead of

getting to the root of the problem. All in all, Africans should be the ones credited with ending

slavery in the United States and all around the world.

The 1733 St. John Insurrection.
The Akwamu slave revolt of 1733 in St. John was defiance to servitude forced by Danish

ranch proprietors. According to Gøbel, “the revolution began in 1733-1734 when outfitted slaves

from Akwamu vanquished the disputable Danish island of the West Indies of St. John” (53). The

revolt went on for a half year with many deaths. Also called the St. John Slave Insurrection in

1733, the cruel treatment incited a huge and fast call for resistance. On November 23, 1733,

around 150 slaves from Akwamu Africa, now Ghana, defied their Danish masters. The gravity of

this protection made it one of the best slave revolts in America. For a while, these oppressed

Africans revolted and incensed white-possessed managers to topple them and controlling St.

John.

In 1718, the Danish took over St. John Island to make a sugar plantation and cultivate

crops, for example, cotton and indigo. In 1733, the number of inhabitants of Atlantians in St.

John was in excess by five times that of Europeans: the island had 208 European and 1087

Atlantians. In light of the brutal states of life because of a hurricane, drought and the loss of

yields because of insect pervasions, many Atlantians left the West Indies, with those in St John

leaving their estates for survival. As stated by Hall, Neville and Higman, “some Atlantians died
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of starvation and others needed to steal to live” (69). Due to these events, the provincial law-

making body passed the Slave Code in 1733 to uplift obedience. Punishments for disobedience

were extreme penalties, including flagellum, amputation and hanged to death. Moreover, a

significant number of the ranches of St John were claimed by constrained workers who lived in

St Thomas. These gifts contracted bosses to direct their territories and to oppress the labourers of

St John. Savagery prospered under these conditions because of uncontrolled and uncalled for

authority. Cruelty flourished under these conditions due to clear and unfair leadership.
After the achievement of overthrowing the white group and controlling property, the

renegades spread all through the island and freed other slaved Africans. They ambushed the

Cinnamon Bay Plantation in Central North Shore. Those slaves who opposed the defiance

guarded their proprietors and homes. They opposed the assault by the renegades, evacuated

them, and utilized.

Like a large portion of the slave revolts at the time, the Akwamu revolt was stifled after a

noteworthy annihilation in May 1734, when French and Swiss troops joined forces from

Martinique to assist the Danes in recovering control of their belongings. As stated by Hall,

Neville and Higman, “the troops were intensely equipped and prepared, such that the goal

restraint of defiant slaves was inescapable” (77). Towards the end of August 1734, the

proprietors took control of the island, and the resistance was proclaimed victorious and ended.

The warriors sought after and murdered or caught every one of the radicals.
On 25th August 1734, the Danish government pronounced the insurrection as quenched

and oppressed. Numerous individuals died amid the transformation, and the enormous

obliteration of property was at that point clear; the major parts of the ranches were in ruins.

Therefore, the proprietors moved from St. John to St. Croix, a close-by rich island that was

purchased by the French in 1733. The Danes immediately re-established their plantations, and

sugar cultivation started soon after the end of the defiance.

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In spite of the annihilation, the slaves died for the advanced triumph. Because of the

resistance, “the Danish government built up a jail and courthouse in Cruz Bay and guaranteed to

enhance the treatment of slaves in St. John, influencing their rights and their requests for the

condition of equity” (Gøbel 95). Ultimately, the building currently known as Battery is the only

government building of Danish expansionism. At that period, the administration had additionally

acquainted a twelve-year design that will disintegrate and annul slavery. Freedom was at long

last an exit from the sun and St. John later turned into a free region. In 1999, US Virgin Islands

enactment announced November 23 as a Freedom Fighters Day in appreciation of Akwamu, who

revolted and battled for his freedom.

President Lincoln and Slavery
Lincoln is recognized as an incredible liberator, yet his perspectives on subjugation and

race were not as basic as his instant notoriety. Despite the fact that he hated slavery, he adored

association, constitution, and law. For the vast majority of his profession, Lincoln considered that

colonial- likelihood that most African-American individuals had to move out of the United States

and go back to Africa or Central America- was his ultimate tactic to handle slavery issues. His

two powerful political saints, Thomas Jefferson and Henry Clay, supported colonialization; they

each had a slave, and each had issues with slaves. However, they did not see the apparent

contrast between them and slaves living peacefully. Lincoln openly upheld colonialization in

1852 and stated in 1854 in his first response lamented that he would "release all slaves and

deliver them back to Liberia."

About ten years after, in spite of the sound of the declaration of the underlying liberation

in August 1862, Lincoln held an appointment concerning slave’s freedom at the White House,

hoping to achieve a joined forces with them in enacting Central American colonization.

Considering the "difference" between two societies and the state of psychological opposition to

the whites, Lincoln said that "it would be better if we were isolated." Lincoln's colonization
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bolsters caused outrage on black pioneers who asserted that African-Americans were both

regular and equal as white and like this merited similar rights. In the wake of declaring the

proclaiming of liberation, Lincoln never discussed colonization in public, and a mention of it in

the past was abolished when the last declaration in January 1863 was issued.
Liberation was a military arrangement.
In spite of the fact that he hated the foundation of slavery, Lincoln did not see the

common war as a battle to convey subjugation to the nation's 4 million slaves. Liberation would

be progressive when it arrived, and it was also essential to keep the Southern resistance from

severing the union completely into two. In any case, when the Civil War in 1862 entered its

second summer, a huge number of slaves had fled southern manors to the Union lines, and the

government had no clear approach on the most proficient method to manage it. According to

Arnold, “Liberation, as indicated by Lincoln, would debilitate the Confederacy and give the

Union another wellspring of work to control the defiance” (112).

Fields, stated that, “In July 1862, Lincoln exhibited his undertaking of an announcement

of the liberation preliminary to his office” (35). Secretary of State William Seward requested to

be patient until the war for the Union was over, or freedom may appear like the final gasp of a

country on the very edge of annihilation. Lincoln acknowledged and altered the plan amid the

mid-year. On September 17, the grisly War of Antietam provided Lincoln an open door he

required. On September 22, he distributed the preliminary declaration in his office and was

distributed the following day. As a group praises the White House, Lincoln talked to them from a

balcony. "I cannot confide in God; I commit mistakes ... It is currently the nation and the world

that will judge me."

The decree of liberation did not by any means free all slaves.
Lincoln's announcement of the liberation declaration as a military measure does not

concern the slave states like the outskirt of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, which

had stayed faithful to the Union. Lincoln additionally discharged chose territories of the
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Confederacy, which were at that point under the control of the Union, planning to increase white

power in those states. With action, the declaration of liberation was then discharged as a slave

freeing, because the main spots where they were connected were places where the national

government has no control: the southern states were at present battling against subjection

solidarity in the union.

In spite of its impediments, Lincoln's declaration denoted a defining moment in Lincoln's

advancing vision of slavery and a defining moment in the Civil War. “Towards the end of the

war, around 200,000 black men served in the armed force and naval forces of the Union”

(Trefousse 93), triggering a lethal hit to the foundation of slavery and ushering in the possible

nullification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Works Cited
Cromwell, John W. “The Aftermath of Nat Turner's Insurrection.” The Journal of Negro

History, vol. 5, no. 2, 1920, pp. 208–234. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2713592.

Benjamins, Ira Lee. “Who Freed the Slaves?: The Fight over the Thirteenth Amendment

by Leonard L. Richards (Review).” Journal of Southern History, The Southern Historical

Association, 8 May 2016, muse.jhu.edu/article/617030/pdf.

Knight, Franklin W. “The Haitian Revolution.” The American Historical Review, vol.

105, no. 1, 2000, pp. 103–115. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2652438.

Talhami, Ghada Hashem. “The Zanj Rebellion Reconsidered.” The International Journal

of African Historical Studies, vol. 10, no. 3, 1977, pp. 443–461. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/216737.
Westergaard, Waldemar. “Account of the Negro Rebellion on St. Croix, Danish West

Indies, 1759.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 11, no. 1, 1926, pp. 50–61. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/2714023.
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Gøbel, Erik. A Guide to Sources for the History of the Danish West Indies (U.S. Virgin

Islands), 1671–1917. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2002.

Hall, A. T., Neville, B. W., and Higman. Slave Society In The Danish West Indies: St

Thomas, St John And St Croix. University Press of the West Indies, 1994.
Arnold, Isaac N. The History of Abraham Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery (Clarke

& Co., 1866).

Fields, Barbara. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the

Nineteenth Century (Yale University Press, 1985).

Trefousse, Hans. L. Lincoln’s Decision for Emancipation (J. B. Lippincott Co., 1975).