To What Extent Did Slavery Cause The Civil War?
A civil war is a conflict between a government or a state and political entities that are in control of a territory that is claimed by the government or state. It is normally a two sided war and it involves a big number of casualties and highly organized and sustained armed forces. It also needs a huge expenditure to finance it. For a war to be civil it has to be within a nation or country and the warring parties should be aiming at taking over the central political power or power in particular region (Kent, 324). A civil war may also aim at forcing a particular policy change in the central or separatist political base.
The American civil war happened between the years 1861 and 1865 in the United States of America. It was after eleven southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the confederacy. It then attacked the U.S federal government also known as the Union which was supported by the Free states and five Border States.
The civil war was the deadliest war to occur in the United States with up to six hundred thousand soldier deaths and many other civilian deaths.
Slavery in the united sates started in 1607 when the English colonist settled in Virginia and lasted until the year 1865. In between this time slavery was legal in the United States and majority of the slaves were blacks who were held by the whit slave holders though there were a few Native American slaves and also a few free black slave holders. More slaves were held by owners of plantations as compared to households and these slaves engaged in machine-like agricultural production.
For so many years slave were composed of both whites and blacks until the 18th century when court rulings were passed to limit slavery to people of African descent who were mainly black and sometimes native Americans. Slavery was mostly concentrated in the southern colonies because of the tobacco production which was chiefly labor intensive where by up to a third of the population was composed of slaves as compared to the south where slaves accounted for approximately 2% of the population. Before the civil war which is credited for stopping slave trade and slavery as whole the United States economy was boosted by the African American labor.
The first case of African slavery in America occurred when a Dutch ship captured 20 African slaves in a ship bound for Mexico and transported them to fort Monroe in Virginia. In addition to these black slaves there were also slaves of European descent who were mainly Germans, English and Scottish. They were mostly indentured slaves meaning they could be freed after sometime even though they were unlikely to be wealth as their owners or other free American citizens.
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