What Historical Events Led To The Civil War

In my view, I think that westward expansion was one of the biggest reasons why the American civil war broke out in 1861. The main reason why westward expansion started was that the president of the United States started to buy more land to add to America this first happened when Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana from the French in 1803 because of this, explores were assigned to explore the land that was double the size of the United States. Thomas Jefferson did this because he thought that Americans should explore and discover lots of new opportunities that new land could offer, but most other Americans thought that the westward expansion was manifest destiny which was when Americans believed that they could freely take land from the native Indians that were originally inhabiting the land.

This sparked a movement to the west when all of the Americans moved to the west to claim the best farming land for very cheap prices. This kept happening when America bought Floria, Texas, Oregon, and then the Mexican cession. With each state added the government had to decide whether it would be a slave state or a free state. To make both sides happy and make it fair they made a rule that was for every slave state added they had to add a free state. This was all happening well.

An example of this is in1820 the Missouri compromise was made this happened when Missouri joined the United States as a slave state. In response to this, they created Maine which also joined the US but as a free state instead. They all thought this was going well so they added California in 1850 in response to this the new states Utah and New Mexico were allowed to choose if they wanted to be a free state or a slave state which they chose to both be a slave state.

This was all going well until 1854 when Kansas AND Nebraska WERE going to be free states but this made the south very angry so the government decided that the people who inhabited the states would be able to choose if they wanted to be a slave state or a free state but the southern slave owners snuck in people(mainly from Missouri) to vote for slavery in these states. The northern people soon found out about this and got very angry which then broke out into violence which then gained the name ‘bleeding Kansas'. 

Because the northern states were against slaves there was not much agriculture in the North so instead, they decided to invest their money in railroads and factories. By 1860 84 percent of the people who invested in factories and new technology were from the northern countries because of this it benefited the southern states because the price of Cotton had been increased massively because of the factories being built in the north.

This ends up leading to the civil war because of the conflicts of the states not being shared out fairly, like what happened in bleeding Kansas which made both sides very angry and gave both sides a reason to fight. 

Slavery started with the triangular trade. This was when merchants from Europe and mostly Liverpool would take large ships and sail them over the Atlantic Ocean to Africa this would be the first trip of the triangular trade. Next, the merchants would go to the African leaders and bribe them with things like rum and weaponry in return the African leaders would give away their troublemakers, criminals, and other tribe members away to the merchants.

Next would be the middle passage this was the worst part of the trip. The slaves were treated like animals. The men were strapped down in the bottom of the boats the woman was left to roam around and could move freely about the boat. They did this because they thought that the male slaves might rebel but they did not expect the woman to rebel. The women were also raped and left pregnant with no help. They were also forced to dance on the ship for entertainment. they were forced to eat rice and if they refused to the sailors would use an object called a speculum oris which would open the slave's mouth with brute force. There was also a big wooden board that went right through the boat to separate the sailors from the slaves.

An example of the middle voyage was the Zhong ship lead by captain Luke Collingwood was sailing in the mid-Atlantic known as the doldrums when he got lost and so he was running dangerously low on food and particularly water. And by 29 November many of the slaves had begun to die from disease and malnutrition so captain Collingwood was getting more and more worried that the slaves were going to revolt, get the crew sick, or get other slaves sick. But there was a law that said slaves were insured if they drowned but if they died of illness then they would not be insured and would have lost lots of money. So captain Collingwood and his crew then threw 132 African slaves over his ship and left them to drown. When the Zong arrived at Black River, Jamaica captain Luke Collingwood tried to claim the insurance for the slaves that had drowned. But the insurers refused to pay so they went to court. When they were in court captain Luke Collingwood said that if we could do the same to animals we can do the same to these slaves the judge suprs0ngly agrees and he then was insured.

When the slave owners arrived in the Carrebien they then took the slaves to an auction. Before the auctions took place the slave owners would scrub the slaves to make them look clean and they would fill their wounds with hot tar. In the auctions the male slaves would sell for 1000$ because they were the strongest and could do the most work, the woman 800$ and the children would cost 500$. But the most expensive slave would be a fertile woman as a plantation owner would get a woman and the child as well for a cheaper price. But before the slaves were bought they were inspected like an animal. their teeth and legs were inspected like a horse and their backs would be checked for whip marks which would determine if the slave was well behaved and would work the plantation or if they would retaliate and run away. The slaves were treated like animals because the slave and plantation owners want them to think they are owned. If there were families in the auctions they would be torn apart from each other and would not be allowed to see each other. The unsold slaves would be sold at a scramble auction the slaves would be sold at very cheap prices to places where they would often not be fed or would be killed because of the poor conditions.

Once the slaves were sold they would be taken to a plantation where they would be forced to work on the plantation that would usually grow cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, oilseeds, oil palms, rubber trees, and fruits but where the plantation was located would deter a what the plantation would grow. When the slaves were working on the plantation they were not allowed to talk to each other and would often be forced to wear metal masks that would be locked onto their heads. They were also regularly whipped with a cat o nine tails whip which was a whip that had 9 whip ends. if they had been misbehaving they would be tied onto a wooden pole and be left in the scorching sun. The slave owners would hardly give them any food or water and so they would fall over because of dehydration. They would also be forced to work 15-17 hours a day without a break with the terrible climate (very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter) despite the climate they were not given any clothes and so they would often get burnt. One of the worst things the slaves had to deal with is the living conditions. They had to live in small huts they would be made to make themselves but the slaves did not know how to do this so the houses would be almost impossible to live in. The slave's diet completely consisted of food called cornbread and it was extremely fatty and they were given it every day to eat. And because of this, they would have no energy to go and work on the fields and so they would get whipped because they were not working hard enough. Most people think That all slaves work on plantations but actually, some slaves would work inside the houses for the owner and his family 80% of slaves worked on plantations. Some of the slaves would try to escape the plantations through the water because the bloodhounds that the plantation owner would have could not trace the sent. They remember this by singing a song that also kept up their morale. The song came from slaves that were working on the railroads. The chorus goes like “wade in the water, wade in the water children, wade in the water Gods gonna trouble the water.” The slaves would keep up morale by singing many of these songs and getting them through the day. The slave's morale would also be high when they got a new piece of clothing which was often made by a slave with the materials from the plantation.

The Atlantic slave trade evolved because lots of people were benefiting from slavery. These people are plantation owners. They benefited from slavery because they used lots of slaves to work on their plantations they were growing resources like cotton, tobacco, and sugar and because the plantation owners did not have to pay the slaves they made a huge profit by selling their produce. They also benefited by being allowed to have more than one slave to cover the whole area of the plantation. The businessmen and merchants also benefited front eh slave trade because they were going to Africa and bribing African leaders to give them the people they didn’t want (like criminals) then they would sell the slaves to the plantation owners and gain a 20%-50% profit. African leaders would also benefit from the slave trade because they would be given guns, rum, and goods by the merchants which they would often use to gain more power. In return, the African leaders would give the merchants all of the criminals, debtors, people from different tribes, and the people they didn’t want. Ordinary people also benefited from the slave trade because the money that the businessmen/merchants got from trading slaves would be added to their salary. They would also have access to the sugar, tobacco, and cotton that the businessmen/merchants would have gotten from the plantation owners.

This is probably the main reason why the American civil war started because everything boils down to slavery if we had no slavery then there would not be westward expansion because the country is only split up into different states because some people want slavery and some do not. This also sparks abolitionism and the movement to get rid of slavery which also causes violence.

Abolitionism is a group of people that want to get rid of slavery and let slaves have rights. They did this in many ways, one of these strategies was to use the press to spread out what slavery actually was and they were aiming to change the feelings that a person had about slavery. The abolitionists would often write in a newspaper called the liberator. They would also use other publications like leaflets that would often contain anti-slavery poems, essay slogans, and even songs. .They would also do this by getting together groups of people who were similar to fight as a group. Most slavery groups (like the American anti-slavery society) used techniques like moral persuasion and lecturing to change people's feelings. One of the most famous activities abolitionists would do was in the Underground Railroad. In there they would have many safe houses for runaway slaves where they could take hospitality in the shelters. The railroads ran from Canada all the way to the more southern states and until 1865 these shelters would provide safety,s helter, and guidance to hundreds of runaway slaves.