What is Slavery ..... for children

SWMODave

Sergeant Major
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Location
Southwest Missouri
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Courtesy Google Books
(taken from the above children's book)
Just here, I must tell you that the slaves were blacks, or negroes, who had first been brought to this country from Africa, in 1619, by the Dutch, and sold to the Virginia planters. At first, the planters bought them out of pity, as they were badly treated by the Dutch. But after a time it was found that the negroes worked well in the corn and tobacco fields, and that they made money for their masters.

Many men at the North were sea - going men, and they soon found out that, by sailing over the ocean to Africa and catching the blacks, they could sell them at a great profit to themselves. This they did, and men both at the North and South bought them, though, even then, there were some people at the South who thought it wrong to buy and sell human beings.

In the State of Georgia it was for a time against the law to hold negro slaves.

After a while, it was found that the climate at the North was too cold for the to thrive. It did not pay the men at the North to keep them, and so they were sold to the Southern planters.

In the South, the climate was hot, like that of their native Africa, so they did well in that sunny land.

In 1808, it was made unlawful to bring any more slaves from Africa to the United States. The people at the South were glad that the trade in slaves was stopped, but the Northern traders were of course sorry that they could make no more money in that way.

When the negroes were first brought from Africa, they were heathen savages; but, after a few years, they learned the speech an customs of the whites; and, more than all, the worship of the true God. In thinking of this, we have to admit that slavery must have been permitted by the Lord in order to bring a heathen people out of darkness into the light of the Gospel.

There were now four millions of negroes in the South . There was great love between the blacks and their masters, as we have seen when John Brown tried to get the former to rise up and slay the whites.

For years, there had been a feeling in the North that it was wrong to own slaves, and some of the people began to hate the South and to try to crush it.

The South felt that they owned the slaves under the law , or Constitution of the United States, and that they ought to be let alone.

They also claimed that the slaves, as a class, were better treated than any other working people in the world. They, moreover, said that the Southern States had a perfect right to go out of the Union, if they wished , and set up a government for themselves. This the North denied ; and thus they quarreled about the rights of States, and slavery, and other things, until they began to think of war.

(the OP adds no comment other than this author would have made a great politician. She has obviously mastered the art of 'the spin'.)
Mods - this probably belongs in SlaveryTalk but I can't seem to locate a post button in that forum so please move at your discretion.
 
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