Here we will analyze the role that racism and white supremacy played in the justification of slavery in America. 

Excerpt from The Pro-Slavery Argument, 1830-1865

“In the quarter-century preceding the Civil War, Southerners advanced a wide range of arguments and theories —some old, some new—to justify the institution of chattel slavery. The distinctiveness of proslavery thinking during the years before the Civil War lay less in its content than in its tone or spirit. Spokesmen for the South's "peculiar institution" were no longer on the defensive; their mood was no longer apologetic. Unlike most of their predecessors, they did not merely tolerate slavery; they glorified it. They took the offensive in behalf of slavery partly in response to the attacks of Northern abolitionists. One objective, perhaps the primary objective of their aggressive proslavery campaign, was to dispel the doubts of Southerners as to the justice of slavery and to convince non-slaveholders and slaveholders alike (and especially the latter) that it was sanctioned by religion, science, and morality, as well as by economic and political considerations.”

Suggested Readings:

• Excerpt of Sociology for the South (1854)
• Slave Codes
• White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and the Two Citizenships of the Fourteenth Amendment

Excerpts of Narratives and/or Brief Biographies:

In their own words, enslaved individuals explain the impact of slavery on their lives.

• Excerpt from Frederick Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
• Excerpt from The Fugitive Blacksmith (1849)
• Ellen Craft
• Harriet Jacobs
• Olaudah Equiano
• Excerpt from Twelve Years a Slave: 1 (1853)

• Excerpt from Twelve Years a Slave: 2 (1853)

Full Narratives:

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave
• Up from Slavery: An Autobiography

1. How was enslavement of Africans justified?

2. What role did racism and white supremacy play in the justification of slavery in America?

3. What was the purpose of slave codes? 

4. Provide one example of a slave code.

5. List two ways that enlavement impacted the lives of those who were forced and/or born into slavery?