a question about slavery?

Question

what was the difference between slavery in the south and the north?

Answer 1

The previous three posters haven't read a great of slavery.

I have.

Here is a good answer:

1. In the South the work was MUCH more harsh than in the North. In fact the further south you went the worse the plantations got. Sugar cane being the most brutal of all the plantations.
2. In the North the opportunity for escape lay only a few hundred miles to the north (Canada) whereas in the South there was very little of successful escape.
3. The North had a better-educated populace and hence a populace more prone to oppose slavery and oppression. Even thought there were MORE anti-slavery societies in the South the anti-slavery societies in the North had more success
4. The weather was more hospitible in the North. No long hours toiling under the hot sun in sweltering humidity.
5. Most northern slaves were involved in craft work (blacksmithing, gardening, cabinet making, metalurgy, etc... whereas in the South plantation labor was the norm.


And there you have an answer from a real historian.

Answer 2

First of all, slavery was abolished in the northern states many decades before the Civil War ended it in the South. And even then, slavery was not anywhere near as widespread in the North as it was in the South. There were roughly twenty times as many slaves in the South as there were in the North. This is because the South had an agriculture-based economy, and they needed lots of slave labor to keep the big plantations running. The North, on the other hand, had a more industrial economy, and they didn't have as much use for slaves. Most of the slaves held in the North were household servants for rich people, or workers on one of the few large-scale farming operations that existed in the North.

Answer 3

There was slavery of similar type in the North and the South. They weren't very different, but the work that slaves were required to do varied somewhat--in the South, many slaves were forced to do farm labor on large plantations, while in the North, many slaves worked in mills and factories. These differences were due to the different climates and economies in the two regions. Also, slavery in the north was abolished before slavery in the South.

Answer 4

I saw this on a documentary recently.
Apparently, the difference between slavery in the North and the South was mostly just what was written in the law books. There were these people, sort of like bounty hunters, that used to go up North and re-capture slaves and capture people who weren't slaves and say they were and collect large cash rewards for the people they turned in as runaway slaves back in the south.
There's a lot more to it than that but anyways, there really wasn't much of a difference at all.

Answer 5

There was a difference? Is slavery not the same no matter where? I hope you are not one of those that thinks that this is what the war betwen the states was about. That is just what some of these people want you to think the war was about. The war was over weather the southern states had the right to suceed from the union.

Answer 6

Slavery made little economic sense in the North and there was not as large a slave population there so eventually it was abolished.

The South's position as the dominant economic force in the US in the antebellum era required an enormous #s of slave laborers to maintain. This large slave population, in turn, made the ruling class fear what would happen if they were freed, a fear that sporadic slave uprisings like Nat Turner's solidified.

edited to add: Mr Curious may be many things but an historian is not one of them.

Answer 7

Slavery was not a widely accepted practice in the Northern states, although there were some instances of it in early colonial American history, and indentured servitude could be deemed a form of slavery as well. Slavery was predominant in the Southern states, where there were large cotton and tobacco plantations that required huge levels of field labor. After the establishment of the United States, and leading up to the civil war, slavery was outlawed in many northern states. The Southern states did not want to outlaw it, as it was not (in their eyes) economical, and would cut into the massive profits they were making from the use of slave labor.

Answer 8

In tghe north it was called something different, indentured servitude or something just as silly. It was okay in the North because of the SUPERIOR people who live there. Anyone who believes that slavery was only in the south will also believe that the war was fought "to preserve the Union." It was slavery all the way.

Answer 9

Nothing, slavery is slavery. I'm not trying to be a smart aleck...its just that it happens to be true. Take a look at the site below, it'll clarify it more than I can.

Answer 10

What slaves there were in the north - not at all many compared to the south - were mostly freed by about 1800 and lived as free blacks, had homes and families and farmed like anyone else. This was mostly due earliest to quaker influence.