EOTO Pro Slavery Lesson

Pro Slavery Event Choice:

The Pro Slavery I went with was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The main reason behind my choice was that I was very familiar with the act. Due to my class of American History that mainly focused on the Civil War last semester and also the term paper and speech all focused on the abolitionist John Brown. Brown raided Harpers Ferry and did many other acts of violence in retaliation of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. So naturally this was the first event that came to mind once my group was assigned to teach about events that were related to proslavery ideas.

My Lesson:

I wanted to start off by explaining the backstory of the Act and how and why it was passed. The Fugitive Slave Act was passed on September 18, 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise consisted of other bills that were all constructed to create an agreement to settle the nerves of the south who had just lost California and Texas as part of the union, as non-slave states as voted by the people. Since both states became non-slave states the south was out numbered in the senate and the house of representatives. Since they were out numbered any action that the southern government tried to committed would be shut down immediately.

The Criteria of the Law:

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 forced people to do the following:

-Required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate in this law.

-If citizens or officials aided or in anyway did not follow the law then they would be punished.

-Officials such as police officers or government figures were all fined 1,000 (29,000 in modern currency)

-Any civilian who was caught disobeying the law was not only fined with 1,000 but also sentenced to sever 6 months in jail.

The law's main purpose was to save southern plantation owners the worry of their slaves from escaping since the numbers of escapes compared with the number of captures was substantially tilted. Since the south was mad about losing more and more pro-slavery states, the law was meant to help the slave owners save money and their way of life since the south solely relied on slaves to collect crops to sustain their economy. People of the south were very proud of the new laws, but favorited the fugitive slave act a lot more. However the people of the north were absolutely outraged. The Police along with bounty hunters known as "bloodhounds" all combed the north to find any runaway slaves to make money.

The corrupt part of this law was that the south always won in every situation. Once a slave was "captured" they were brought to be court to be tried and identified. If the slave was identified as indeed the slave then he or she will be sent to their "masters" and the judge along with the officials that captured the slave all receive bonuses. This resulted in many African men and women all innocent being brought into the market of slavery just because of the color of their skin and any sort of small comparison.

How the Law is Pro-Slavery:

The law is proslavery because it is actually meant to satisfy the way of the south, while focusing on slavery. Since slaveowners were always worried and losing money to runaway slaves along the now well established Underground Railroad so the bills within the Compromise of 1850 was to relieve tension and frustration that has been building for so many years in the south. The reason that the law was so extreme was due to the fact that the union being scared of the threats of secession. To give the south a feeling of victory and to please them they gave them laws that would always result in the south winning and the north was ok with these acts and abuse continuing as long as their was peace in the country between the 2 regions.