Fact Sheet on Slavery
Here is a fact sheet on slavery and the abolition and anti-slavery movements in the United States. Its purpose is to give you an overview of these issues and give you a greater depth of understanding of these important topics.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
20 million Africans were captured for the slave trade. More than half died before they reached the coast.[i]
10-12 million Africans were sold into slavery by African-to-European slave traders. Some estimates run as high as 15 million.[ii]
European slave traders shipped more than 11 million across the Atlantic; 9.6 million reached the Americas. More than 60 percent came from West Central Africa and the Bight of Benin.[iii]
Between 1 million and 2.2 million enslaved individuals died during shipment to the New World. It was called the “Middle Passage.” It took as long as 10 weeks.[iv]
Countries that transported enslaved individuals to the New World:
England, France, Spain Portugal, Netherlands, United States.[v]
In the 18th Century, Great Britain was the largest slave-trading nation in the world.
Slavery in British Colonial North America – 1619-1776
Approximately 350,000 enslaved individuals were brought to the British North American colonies and the United States by the African slave trade before it was outlawed in 1808. This represented less than 5% of the 12 million people brought to the Americas.
Most enslaved individuals were imported to support the sugar industry in the Caribbean and Brazil.
Life expectancy for enslaved people was short.
Great Britain had never authorized slavery by law. By 1772, slavery was made partially unenforceable under common law. The British Empire discontinued its large participation in the slave trade in 1807. However, slavery flourished in the majority of British colonies, including the American colonies. By 1833, wealthy slave-holding families living in England were bought out and people they had held in bondage were emancipated.
Number of enslaved individuals in England at the time of the ending of slavery: 15,000[vi]
African Slave Imports into British North America and the United States, Including Louisiana[vii]
1620-1700 20,500
1701-1760 188,600
1761-1770 62,668
1771-1780 14,902
1771-1790 55,750
1791-1800 79,041
1801-1810 114,090
1761-1810 Louisiana imports 10,200
1810-1870 51,000
Total 596,751
August 20, 1619, is the approximate start of slavery in the British North American colonies. “Twenty and odd Africans were sold by a Dutch ship in the Jamestown colony.” About four percent of the total slave trade went to the British North American colonies. Half of the slaves were men, less than twenty-five percent were children.
The first Fugitive Acts were passed in the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1630.
December 1641 is the date of the first Slave Law in the British North American colonies. It was Section 91 of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties. In 1661, Virginia laws made all Black indentured servants to be servants for life.
Slavery during the American Revolution – 1776-1789
Many enslaved people escaped from servitude during the Revolutionary War. In South Carolina, almost 25,000 enslaved individuals escaped, migrated or perished. A number of enslaved individuals escaped in New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies. At the end of the war, the British evacuated Loyalists and their enslaved peoples to the Caribbean and to Nova Scotia.
Enslaved peoples and freedmen fought on the side of the colonies during the Revolutionary War. George Washington authorized that enslaved individuals who fought in the Continental Army would be freed. The Rhode Island colony began enlisting enslaved individuals as early as 1778. During the Revolutionary War, approximately one fifth of the northern army was black. One officer estimated that perhaps one quarter of the Continental Army was black.
Agricultural crops that utilized slave labor in North America
Tobacco – Virginia, Chesapeake region, beginning Seventeenth Century
Corn – Virginia, Chesapeake region, beginning Seventeenth Century; later cultivated in Georgia and Mississippi
Rice – Low country of South Carolina, Georgia, 1725-1860s
Indigo – Coastal South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 1740s-1790s
Long staple cotton – Sea Islands, Georgia
Short staple cotton – Sea Islands, Georgia, Lower Mississippi Valley, Middle south Carolina through East Texas, 1790s-1860s; short staple cotton utilized half the slaves in the South[viii]
Sugar industry – sugar cane; South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Southern Louisiana, Lower Mississippi Valley[ix]
Slavery in the United States – 1789-1860
Total number of enslaved individuals in the British North American colonies and the United States between 1619 and 1865: 5 million
Number of U.S. Presidents who owned slaves: 12
They were: George Washington (between 250-350 slaves); Thomas Jefferson (about 200); James Madison (more than 100); James Monroe (about 75); Andrew Jackson (fewer than 200); Martin Van Buren (one); William Henry Harrison (eleven); John Tyler (about 70); James Polk (about 25); Zachary Taylor (fewer than 150); Andrew Johnson (probably eight); Ulysses S. Grant (probably five).[x]
Number of U.S. Presidents who owned slaves while in office: 8
They were: George Washington; Thomas Jefferson; James Madison; James Monroe; Andrew Jackson; John Tyler; James Polk; Zachary Taylor[xi]
When George Washington inherited Mt. Vernon in 1752, it had 18 enslaved individuals. At the time of his death in 1799, he owned 200 enslaved individuals.[xii]
Thomas Jefferson was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769. His first act was to try to free the enslaved individuals in the colony.[xiii] Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826. This was the 50th anniversary, to the day, of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. By then, he had only manumitted 5 of the many enslaved individuals he owned. After his death, these enslaved individuals were sold to pay his debts.
After the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, the production of cotton became much more profitable.
The Constitution
The Constitution of the United States went into effect in 1789. Several provisions of the Constitution regarded slavery. Specifically, Section 9 of Article I forbade the Federal government from ending the importation of slavery before January 1, 1808. Section 2 of Article IV prohibited states from freeing enslaved people who fled from one state to another and demanded the return of enslaved people to their owners.
Section 2 of Article I designated “other persons” (enslaved individuals) to be counted to the total population at a rate of three-fifths of their total number. This afforded disproportional representation of total population by the southern states.
Large portions of the northern economy depended on the output of enslaved labor in the south. This also gave the southern states disproportionate political power in the House of Representatives.
Advocates of slavery defended the institution as a “necessary evil.” Proponents of slavery feared that abolition would have devastating economic consequences. Thomas Jefferson stated in 1820: “We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”
In 1837, Senator John C. Calhoun declared that slavery was “instead of an evil, a good—a positive good.” Many proponents of slavery defended the institution on social, political and moral grounds. A number of books used the Bible to defend the institution of slavery.
The Second Passage
The beginning of the Second Middle Passage. Between 1790 and the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, more than one million enslaved individuals were sold and moved to the deep south to work in the cotton fields. This was the largest forced migration in American history. Countless generations of enslaved families were separated forever. The breeding of enslaved individuals for labor and for sale became ever more widespread. More than three and a half million individuals were born into slavery.
On July 13, 1787, the United States Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. It outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territories, north of the Ohio River.[xiv]
Between 1790 and 1832, Virginia Governor Randolph estimated that 260,000 enslaved individuals were sold and moved to the deep South. This is approximately 6,000 per year.[xv]
Enslaved Populations
In 1790, the first United States Census showed 757,181 Blacks, among whom 697,624 were slaves, 59,557 were free. Blacks were 19.3% of the population.[xvi]
In 1800, the second United States Census showed 1,001,436 Blacks in the U.S. This was 18.9% of the total population. There were 893,041 slaves and 108,395 free Blacks.[xvii]
In 1810, the third United States Census determined that there were 1,191,364 slaves and 186,446 free Blacks. They were 19% of the total population.[xviii]
In 1820, the fourth United States Census reported that there were 1,538,038 slaves and 233,524 free Blacks in the United States. This was 18.4% of the country’s population.[xix]
In 1830, the fifth Census of the United States indicated there were 2,009,043 slaves and 319,599 free Blacks in the United Sates. This was a 30% increase from 1820. Blacks constituted 18.1% of the national population.[xx]
In 1840, the Census of the United States indicated that there were 2,487,455 slaves living in the United States. There were also 386,303 free Blacks, for a total of 2,873,758. This was an increase of 26.62% from 1830.[xxi]
In 1850, United States Census figured show that there were 3,204,313 slaves in the United States. This was an increase of 28.82% since 1840. There were 434,449 free Blacks, for a total of 3,638,762. Blacks comprised 15.7% of the total U.S. population.
Slavery in the United States - 1860
Total population of the United States in 1860, according to census reports: 31,443,321[xxii]
The total number of enslaved individuals in the United States in 1860: 3,953,760
Enslaved individuals as a percentage of the US population in 1860: 13%
Increase in enslaved individuals in the US from 1850 to 1860: 23.39%
Number of free Black persons in US in 1860: 487,970
Proportion of Blacks in the US in 1860 who were enslaved: 89%
There were 8 million Whites living in the South.[xxiii] 383,637 of them owned slaves. The price of a healthy field hand slave was approximately $1,200-1,800.
Number of slaveholding states in 1860: 15[xxiv]
Total population of these slaveholding states in 1860: 12,240,000
Number of enslaved individuals in the US in 1860: 3,953,696
Number of free Blacks in slaveholding states in 1860: 251,000
Enslaved individuals as a percentage of the total population in the South: 32%
Slavery in the South
Number of slaveholders in the South in 1860: 383,637
More than 75% of Southerners did not own slaves.
In South Carolina and Mississippi, 50% of all families owned slaves, 88% owned 20 or fewer, 72% owned fewer than 10 enslaved individuals, 50% owned fewer than 5.
10,000 Southern families were considered large slaveholders.
The enslaved populations by state in the South in 1860 were:[xxv]
Alabama: 435,080
Arkansas: 111,115
Florida: 61,745
Georgia: 462,198
Louisiana: 331,726
Mississippi: 436,631
North Carolina: 331,059
South Carolina: 402,406
Tennessee: 275,719
Texas: 182,566
Virginia: 490,865
The enslaved populations by state in the Border States in 1860 were:[xxvi]
Delaware: 1,798
District of Columbia: 3,185
Kentucky: 225,483
Maryland: 87,189
Missouri: 114,931
Slavery in Southern Cities
Enslaved population in major Southern cities in 1860:[xxvii]
Augusta, Georgia: 3,663
Charleston, South Carolina: 13,909
Louisville, Kentucky: 4,903
Mobile, Alabama: 7,587
Nashville, Tennessee: 3,226
New Orleans, Louisiana: 13,385
Norfolk, Virginia: 3,284
Petersburg, Virginia: 5,680
Richmond, Virginia: 11,699
Savannah, Georgia: 7,712
Wilmington, North Carolina: 3,777
Three-fifths of a person
According to the Constitution, enslaved individuals were counted as three-fifths of a person for tallying representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
These states had 45 congressional representatives and 14 senators. The enslaved individuals residing in the South gave the South a disproportionate representation in Congress. The reason that the slave states could dictate national policy was the direct result of the millions of enslaved individuals living within their borders.[xxviii]
Escape to freedom
Number of enslaved individuals who escaped in 1850: 1,011 (1 for each 3,165 held in slavery, or about one thirtieth of one percent)[xxix]
Fugitive slaves in 1860: 803 (one slave per 5,000, or one fiftieth of one percent)[xxx]
Number of enslaved individuals who were freed by manumission, 1860: 3,000[xxxi]
Number of enslaved individuals who were manumitted in 1850: 1,309[xxxii]
Increase in population of enslaved individuals in the United States:
Number of enslaved individuals in the United States in 1790: 697,897[xxxiii]
Number of enslaved individuals in the United States in 1860: 3,953,760[xxxiv]
This is a 567% increase in 70 years.
Number of Blacks who emigrated to Liberia between 1820 and 1856: 9,502, of whom 3,676 were free-born[xxxv]
Total Economic Value That Slavery Contributed to the United States
The total value of the contribution of five million slaves to the United States economy between 1776 and 1865 was estimated to be trillions of dollars, adjusted for dollars in 2017. This comprises nearly half of the annual Gross National Product of the United States.
The total economic value of the four million slaves in the United States in 1860 was worth more than all factories, railroads, buildings, and the entire economic output. The only thing more valuable was the value of the land itself.
Slave Revolts
There were sixty-five recorded North American slave revolts. The three best known were led by Gabriel Prosser (1800), Nat Turner (1831) and Denmark Vesey (1822).
Slave Narratives
Between 1760 and 1967, more than 200 slave narratives were published in England and the United States. Among them are autobiographies of former slaves, Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup, William Wells Brown, Josiah Henson, Moses Roper, Austin Steward, etc. Between 1936 and 1938, more than 2,200 former slaves were interviewed by the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).[xxxvi]
Abolition and Anti-Slavery Movements in the United States
Freeing of Enslaved People[xxxvii]
There were no anti-slavery societies, newspapers, or magazines before the American Revolution.[xxxviii]
Quakers originated the anti-slavery movement in the North American colonies.[xxxix]
Rodger Williams and Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, who wrote The Selling of Joseph (1700) were the first colonists to oppose slavery.[xl]
In 1735, Georgia Trustees enact a law to end slavery in the colony. By 1750, Georgia reverses this and authorizes slavery.
In 1774, Rhode Island prohibited the importation of slaves into the colony. In 1775, it enacted a law declaring children of slave mothers will be born free.
In 1778, Virginia prohibited the importation of slaves from Africa.
Massachusetts abolished slavery in the Bill of Rights in 1780.
In 1780, Pennsylvania prohibited the introduction of slaves into the state and decreed that children born of slave mothers would be declared free.
In 1783, Maryland prohibited the importation of slaves. Also in 1783, slavery was successfully challenged in a Massachusetts court.
In 1784, the state of Connecticut prohibited the introduction of slaves and declared children of slaves born after March of that year would be declared free at the age of 26.
In 1792, New Hampshire abolished slavery.
In 1794, the Third Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794. It prohibited the building of ships for the slave trade.
In 1799, New York abolished slavery.
In 1800 and 1803, Congress passed acts to discourage the slave trade by limiting financial investments in the import trade. It further prohibited the importation of enslaved individuals into free states in the north.
In 1804, New Jersey began a process of freeing enslaved individuals.
The United States abolished, by Federal law, the importation of slaves from the African trade in 1808.
In 1819, the American Colonization Society was created in Washington, DC. Its purpose was to gradually emancipate enslaved individuals in the south and to promote the settlement of newly freed individuals to colonies in Africa. It was comprised mostly of sympathetic slaveholders and Quakers who were opposed to slavery. Newly freed individuals have little desire to go to Africa.
On March 3, 1819, the United States Congress passed stringent laws to impede illegal smuggling of slaves into the country. The President could order the return to Africa of slaves brought in illegally. The President could send armed U.S. naval vessels to Africa to interdict slave ships. The British Navy cooperated in this effort.[xli]
On March 2, 1820, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was passed by Congress. The vote was very close, at 90 to 87. It prohibited all slavery north of a line 36°30’. It allowed Missouri to be admitted as a slave state and Maine as a free state.[xlii]
In 1820, New Jersey abolished slavery.
In 1822, the American Colonization Society established a colony in Liberia, in West Africa.
As of 1827, there were approximately 130 anti-slavery societies in the United States: 106 were in the slave South.[xliii] New York freed the last of its enslaved population.
In 1832, William Lloyd Garrison and other prominent abolitionists founded the American Antislavery Society. It would become the largest abolition organization in the United States.
As of 1835, there were 225 abolitionist and anti-slavery societies in the United States.[xliv]
As of 1837, there were 1,006 abolitionist groups in the United States.[xlv]
As of 1838, there were an estimated 1,406 abolitionist and anti-slavery organizations in the United States, with approximately 115,000 members.[xlvi]
In 1840, the Rhode Island census listed seven slaves.
In 1843, Great Britain and the United States entered into an agreement to send Naval patrols to the west coast of Africa to prevent the shipment of slaves. The result was the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.
Pennsylvania freed the last of its enslaved population in 1847, Connecticut in 1848, and New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire in 1865.
During this period, no southern state abolished slavery. Some individual southern slaveholders, however, voluntarily manumitted their slaves.
Congress enacted the Compromise of 1850. California was admitted to the Union as a free state. The territories of New Mexico and Utah could decide by vote whether they would be free or slave territory.[xlvii] The slave trade, but not slavery, was abolished in Washington, DC.
Congress passed the new Federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Slaves had to be returned to their owners. This strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. As a result, many former slaves living in New England would settle in Canada.[xlviii]
In 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was published. More than a million copies were sold.
On May 30, 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was signed into law. It created the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allowed for a vote by the population to determine if they would be free or slave. This act repealed the anti-slavery clause of the Missouri Compromise. The three-fifths rule allowed pro-slavery advocates to be elected President. It also prevented further suppression of the African slave trade.[xlix]
On March 6, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Dred Scott case. It stated that Congress had no power to limit slavery in the territories. Three justices concluded that African Americans descended from slaves had no rights as American citizens.[l] Supreme Court Chief Justice Tanney ruled that Blacks, both free and slave, were “beings of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race… and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
On October 16 and 17, 1859, John Brown led an attack on the U.S. Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. The attack was quickly put down. Brown and several of his followers were captured.
Emancipation of Enslaved People during the Civil War
By the beginning of the Civil War, it is estimated that there were 255,000 individuals, both Black and White, involved in the anti-slavery and abolitionist movement in the United States.
On August 6, 1861, the U.S. Congress passed the First Confiscation Act. This act authorized the freeing of slaves in areas of Union Army occupation and where slaves had been employed to support the Confederate military.[li]
In November 1861, President Lincoln proposed a plan for gradual, compensated emancipation of slaves in Delaware, which would be supported by the federal government. Lincoln drafted two bills to be entered into the state legislature. The bills, however, were not introduced. Slavery remained in Delaware until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.[lii]
In 1862, a treaty was signed between United States and Great Britain for the suppression of the slave trade (African Slave Trade Treaty Act).
On March 6, 1862, Abraham Lincoln sent a message to the U.S. Congress proposing a plan of gradual, compensated emancipation in the loyal slave states. It stated, “I recommend the adoption of a Joint Resolution by your honorable bodies which shall be substantially as follows: ‘Resolved that the United States ought to co-operate with any state which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such state pecuniary aid, to be used by such state in it's discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences public and private, produced by such change of system.’” [liii] The proposal was very quickly approved by Congress. Many of the New York papers endorsed the proposal. Lincoln made the goal of ending slavery in the United States an official policy. The abolitionist community also enthusiastically supported the proposal.[liv]
On March 13, 1862, President Lincoln approved an act of the Congress that prohibited Union Army commanders from returning captured or fugitive slaves to their owners (except for loyal slave states). It superseded the Fugitive Slave Act.[lv]
On April 16, 1862, Lincoln signed the law, “An Act for the Release of Certain Persons Held to Service, or Labor in the District of Columbia,” passed by United States Congress, providing for immediate, compensated emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia. It was the first Federal law giving enslaved individuals immediate emancipation. It ended slavery as an institution; it was not a measure to enforce the Confiscation Act. More than 3,000 enslaved individuals were freed. Approximately $900,000 was paid to the former slaveholders by the Federal government. Congress soon repealed the Black Codes of the District. Many enslaved individuals in the areas surrounding Washington would soon escape to freedom there. [lvi]
On June 9, 1862, the U.S. Senate approved of a resolution that would prohibit slavery from all federal territories. This was without compensation to former slave holders.[lvii] Lincoln signed the bill into law.
On July 17, 1862, Congress enacted the Second Confiscation Act. It was called “An Act to Suppress Insurrection, and to Punish Treason and Rebellion, to Seize and Confiscate Property of Rebels and for Other Purposes.” This act granted freedom to enslaved individuals whose masters participated in the secession.[lviii]
The Emancipation Proclamation
On July 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln submitted a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet, to be effective July 1, 1863. It declared that on January 1, 1863, “All persons held as slaves within any state or states [in Confederate control] shall then, thenceforward, and forever, be free.” Abolition was to be immediate and with no compensation to the slaveholders. The Secretary of War called for it to be issued immediately. Secretary of State Seward advised Lincoln not to issue it until after a major victory in the war.[lix]
Also on that date, Lincoln issued an executive order authorizing, “1. Military commanders may seize and use real property in rebel States for military purposes. 2. Military and naval commanders may employ as laborers persons of African descent, giving them reasonable wages for their labors. 3. Accounts of property of all kinds taken from owners shall be kept as basis for proper compensation.”[lx]
On September 22, 1864, after the Union victory at Antietam, United States President Abraham Lincoln announced the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It declared that “on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred sixty-three, all persons held as slaves, within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The Proclamation further stated (as summarized by Miers): “President will designate states in rebellion on Jan. 1. Army and navy personnel are prohibited by Act of March 13, 1862, from returning fugitive slaves. The act to suppress insurrection, approved July 17, 1862, provides that: 1. Escaped slaves and those in territory occupied by forces of U.S. shall be free. 2. Run-away slaves will not be delivered up except for crime or claim of lawful owner under oath that he has not borne arms against government. Executive will recommend that loyal citizens be compensated for all losses by acts of U.S., including loss of slaves.”[lxi] Lincoln called on Congress to approve legislation for compensated emancipation of slaves.[lxii]
On New Year’s Day 1863 at noon, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It went into effect, freeing slaves in states that had seceded and were part of the Confederacy. Most slaves in “border states” were freed by state action. It stated: “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”[lxiii]
On January 1, 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives achieved a two-thirds vote majority on the Thirteenth Amendment, forbidding slavery in the U.S. It read, “Article XIII, Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” It sent the Amendment to the states for ratification. It was the first to be added since the Twelfth Amendment, of 1803, ratified in 1804.[lxiv] By December 18, the Thirteenth Amendment became law.[lxv] America was the second to the last country in the Western hemisphere to abolish slavery. Brazil was the last country, ending slavery in 1888.
500,000 enslaved individuals left their places of enslavement when the Union Army entered slave states. Many of them followed the Union Army or escaped behind Union Army lines. Many of these individuals volunteered as laborers for the Army. They were cooks, teamsters, builders, engineers, etc.
180,000 African Americans served in the Union Army during the Civil War. 40,000 were killed.
State and Congressional Apologies for Slavery
On February 24, 2007, the Virginia General Assembly enacted House Joint Resolution Number 728 apologizing for slavery. It would acknowledge:
“with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans, and call for reconciliation among all Virginians.”
On July 29, 2008, the United States House of Representatives issued an apology for slavery in the form of House Resolution 194. The resolution:
“(1) acknowledges that slavery is incompatible with the basic founding principles recognized in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal;
(2) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow;
(3) apologizes to African Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow; and
(4) expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future.”
On June 18, 2009, the United States Senate issues an apology for slavery in the form of Senate Concurrent Resolution 26. The resolution provides:
“(1) apology for the enslavement and segregation of African-Americans. The Congress
(A) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws;
(B) apologizes to African Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws; and
(C) expresses its recommitment to the principal that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and calls on all people of the United States to work toward eliminating racial prejudices, injustices, and discrimination from our society.
(2) DISCLAIMER. – Nothing in this Resolution—
(A) authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or
(B) serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States.”
Footnotes
[i] Dumond, p. 4; Rodriquez, pp. 497-498.
[ii] Dumond, Dwight Lowell. Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 4; Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 497-498.
[iii] Dumond, p. 4; Rodriquez, pp. 497-498.
[iv] Dumond, p. 4; Rodriquez, pp. 497-498.
[v] Dumond.
[vi] Dumond, p. 5.
[vii] Miller, Randall M., and John D. Smith, Eds., Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, New York: Greenwood Press, 1988, p. 678.
[viii] Miller & Smith, pp. 34-36.
[ix] Miller & Smith, p. 37.
[x] http://hauensteincenter.org/slaveholding/ downloaded 2/28/2015.
[xi] http://hauensteincenter.org/slaveholding/ downloaded 2/28/2015.
[xii] Dumond.
[xiii] Dumond.
[xiv] Dumond.
[xv] Dumond, p. 68.
[xvi] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1864, p. ix.
[xvii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. ix.
[xviii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. ix.
[xix] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. ix.
[xx] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. ix.
[xxi] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. ix.
[xxii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. 599.
[xxiii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. vii.
[xxiv] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. vii.
[xxv] Long, p. 702.
[xxvi] Long, p. 701.
[xxvii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. xiii.
[xxviii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. ix; Dumond, p. 70.
[xxix] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. xvi.
[xxx] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. xvi.
[xxxi] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. xv.
[xxxii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. xv.
[xxxiii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. viii.
[xxxiv] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. viii.
[xxxv] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. ix.
[xxxvi] Miller & Smith, p. 698.
[xxxvii] Bureau of the Census. Population of the United States in 1860, p. xiv.
[xxxviii] Dumond, p. 16; Drake, p. 5.
[xxxix] Dumond, p. 16; Drake, p. 5.
[xl] Dumond, p. 16.
[xli] Dumond, p. 129.
[xlii] Dumond, pp. 75, 380FN13.
[xliii] Miller & Smith, p. 3.
[xliv] Dumond, p. 189.
[xlv] Dumond, p. 189.
[xlvi] Dumond, p. 189.
[xlvii] Dumond, pp. 360-363.
[xlviii] Dumond, pp. 308, 362.
[xlix] Dumond, pp. 75, 362, 380FN13; Foner.
[l] Foner.
[li] Dumond, p. 372; Foner, pp. 175-179, 183, 186, 187, 191, 202, 204, 287.
[lii] Foner, pp. 182-184, 342.
[liii] Dumond, p. 372; Foner; Long, p. 179; Miers, p. 98.
[liv] Basler, Collected Works, Vol. V, pp. 144-146; Foner, pp. 195-196.
[lv] Dumond, p. 372; Foner, p. 195; Miers, p. 98; Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2nd Session, 944, 955, 958-959, 1143.
[lvi] Basler, Collected Works, Vol. V, p. 192; Dumond, p. 372; Foner, p. 201; Miers, p. 107.
[lvii] Dumond, p. 372; Foner, p. 203; Statute L, xii, 432; Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 1137, 2917-2920, 2929, 2999.
[lviii] Basler, Collected Works, Vol. V, pp. 328-331; Dumond, p. 372; Foner; Long, p. 241; Miers, p. 128; Statute L, xii, 589.
[lix] Basler, Collected Works, Vol. V, pp. 336-337; Dumond, p. 372; Foner, pp. 218-219; Long, pp. 242-243; Samuel Chase diary.
[lx] Miers, p. 129.
[lxi] Miers, p. 141.
[lxii] Foner; Long, p. 270; Basler, Vol. V, pp. 433-436.
[lxiii] Basler, Collected Works, Vol. VI, pp. 28-31; Foner; Long, p. 306; Miers, p. 160.
[lxiv] Nevins, p. 213.
[lxv] Foner.
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