Slavery during the Antebellum Period

Introduction

An economic, political, and cultural institution lasting for more than two centuries, slavery affected every man, woman, and child in the 19th century United States. In broad terms, American slavery could be considered a labor system in which enslaved men and women, overwhelmingly of African descent, were owned by free men and women, overwhelmingly white. Yet such a definition obscures the complexity of the system and the ways in which it was shaped by those who participated in it, whether by coercion or by choice. Slavery varied by industry, by region, through personal relationships, and by the ...