Joseph Sims
Professor Gudgeirsson
History 17A
12 May 2014
National Identity During The Antebellum Period
Slavery is a practice that has been used since the dawn of time. Humans have always forced other humans to do different things: whether it is forced labor, forced child labor, forced marriage, or forced sexual slavery. One common aspect among all of those types of slavery is the use of force, without the consent of the person being forced. Without the use of slavery during the early development of the United States of America, the country that we call the United States of America today might not have been a country; or, at the very least, would be a significantly different nation than the one we know. During the Antebellum Period, slavery was used on a scale that had never really been reached before. The main use of slaves was forced labor on plantations. However, slaves were also forced to perform sexual acts, among other things. Slaveholders, as well as people who did not agree with slavery, knew that slavery was vital to the United States development in becoming a world power and breakaway from the Crown. Without it, the work would not have gotten done, or as quickly as it did. As ugly as it is to say, without the forced labor, the United States might not be the United States. The massive production of cotton propelled the United States to becoming a world power. With this crop, the United States was able to breakaway from the Crown: all thanks to slavery. Americans, North and South, both supported slavery. The majority of Southerners, even non-slaveholders, identified with and defended the institution of slavery. While Northerners supported slavery from an economic standpoint, most of them detested the morality of the matter.
Southerners, slaveholders and non-slaveholders, supported the use of slaves. They did so because they knew work needed to be done, and that work wasn’t the kind whites wanted to do. Slaves worked all different…