History of slavery in Kentucky
Encyclopedia
The history of slavery in Kentucky
dates from the earliest permanent European settlements in the state until the end of the Civil War
. Although Kentucky was generally classified as the Upper South or a Border state
, rather than the Deep South
, enslaved African Americans made up a substantial percentage of the population. Early Kentucky history was built on the labor of slavery
, and it was an integral part of the state. From 1790 to 1860 the slave population of Kentucky was never more than one quarter of the total population, with lower percentages after 1830 as planters sold slaves to the Deep South. Slave populations were greatest in the central "bluegrass" region of the state, which was rich in farmland. In 1850, 23 percent of Kentucky's white males held enslaved African Americans.
Early travelers to Kentucky in the 1750s and 1760s brought their slaves with them. As permanent settlers started arriving in the late 1770s, they held slaves in the station-based settlements, organized around forts. Settlers, chiefly migrants from Virginia, continued to rely on slave labor as they established more permanent farms.
Planters who grew hemp
and tobacco
made the greatest use of slave labor, as these were labor-intensive crops. Subsistence farming could be done without slave labor. Some owners also used enslaved African Americans in mining and manufacturing operations
.
Farms in Kentucky tended to be smaller than the plantations of the Deep South, so ownership of large numbers of slaves was uncommon. Many slaves had to find spouses on a neighboring farm, and often fathers did not get to live with their wives and families.
Kentucky exported more slaves than did most states. From 1850 to 1860, 16 percent of enslaved African Americans were sold out of state. Many African Americans were sold directly to plantations in the Deep South, or transported by traders along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to slave markets in New Orleans (hence the later euphemism for any sort of betrayal, to be "sold down the river"). The sales were the result of reduced labor needs due to changes in local agriculture, as well as substantial out-migration by white families from Kentucky. In the 1840s and 1850s, white families migrated west to Missouri and Tennessee, even southwest to Texas. The larger slave-holding families took slaves with them on forced migration
to Tennessee and Missouri. These factors combined to create greater instability for enslaved families in Kentucky than in some of the Deep South states.
s from Kentucky included Henry Bibb
, Lewis Clarke
, Margaret Garner
, Lewis Hayden
, and Josiah Henson
. A mass escape attempt occurred in August 1848 when 55 to 75armed slaves fled from several counties, representing one of the largest coordinated escape attempts in American history. They were captured by the state militia
several days later after a shootout.
had existed in the state since at least the 1790s, when Presbyterian minister David Rice
unsuccessfully lobbied to include slavery prohibition in each of the state's first two constitutions, created in 1792 and 1799. Baptist ministers David Barrow and Carter Tarrant formed the Kentucky Abolition Society in 1808. By 1822 it began publishing one of America's first anti-slavery periodicals.
Conservative emancipation, which argued for gradually freeing the slaves and assisting them in a return to Africa, gained substantial support in the state from the 1820s onward. Cassius Marcellus Clay was a vocal advocate of this position. His newspaper was shut down by mob action in 1845. The anti-slavery Louisville Examiner was published successfully from 1847 to 1849.
s. The small-farm nature of Kentucky meant that slave labor was not so critical to profits as it was for the labor-intensive crops of the Deep South, such as cotton, sugar, and rice farming.
Controversial laws in 1815 and 1833 limited the importation of slaves into Kentucky, which created the strictest rules of any slave states. The Nonimportation Act of 1833 banned any importation of slaves for commercial or personal purpose. The ban was widely violated, especially in counties near the Tennessee border. In 1849 the writing of the state's pro-slavery constitution meant repeal of the ban against importing.
Slavery was the principal issue of the third constitutional convention held in 1849. While the convention was convened by anti-slavery advocates who hoped to amend the constitution to prohibit slavery, they greatly underestimated pro-slavery support. The convention became packed with pro-slavery delegates, who drafted what some historians consider the most pro-slavery constitution in United States history.
After the embarrassing defeat, abolitionists lost political power during the 1850s. Nonetheless, anti-slavery newspapers were still published in Louisville and Newport
. More than half the residents of Louisville owned slaves, and the city had the largest slave population in the state. In addition, for years the slave trade from the Upper South had contributed to its prosperity and growth. Through the 1850s, the city exported 2500-4000 slaves a year in sales to the Deep South. The trading city had grown rapidly and had 70,000 residents by 1860.
John Gregg Fee
established a network of abolitionist schools, communities and churches in Eastern Kentucky, where slaveholders were the fewest in number. In the turmoil following John Brown's raid
on Harper's Ferry, Fee and his supporters were driven from the state by a mob in 1859.
, as Maryland
and Missouri
did. Nevertheless, about 75% of slaves in Kentucky were freed or escaped to Union lines during the war. Slavery finally ended with ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment
in 1865. However, Kentucky would not ratify it until 1976.
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
dates from the earliest permanent European settlements in the state until the end of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Although Kentucky was generally classified as the Upper South or a Border state
Border states (Civil War)
In the context of the American Civil War, the border states were slave states that did not declare their secession from the United States before April 1861...
, rather than the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
, enslaved African Americans made up a substantial percentage of the population. Early Kentucky history was built on the labor of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, and it was an integral part of the state. From 1790 to 1860 the slave population of Kentucky was never more than one quarter of the total population, with lower percentages after 1830 as planters sold slaves to the Deep South. Slave populations were greatest in the central "bluegrass" region of the state, which was rich in farmland. In 1850, 23 percent of Kentucky's white males held enslaved African Americans.
Early travelers to Kentucky in the 1750s and 1760s brought their slaves with them. As permanent settlers started arriving in the late 1770s, they held slaves in the station-based settlements, organized around forts. Settlers, chiefly migrants from Virginia, continued to rely on slave labor as they established more permanent farms.
Planters who grew hemp
Hemp
Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...
and tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
made the greatest use of slave labor, as these were labor-intensive crops. Subsistence farming could be done without slave labor. Some owners also used enslaved African Americans in mining and manufacturing operations
Manufacturing operations
Manufacturing operations concern the operation of a facility, as opposed to maintenance, supply and distribution, health, and safety, emergency response, human resources, security, information technology and other infrastructural support organizations....
.
Farms in Kentucky tended to be smaller than the plantations of the Deep South, so ownership of large numbers of slaves was uncommon. Many slaves had to find spouses on a neighboring farm, and often fathers did not get to live with their wives and families.
Kentucky exported more slaves than did most states. From 1850 to 1860, 16 percent of enslaved African Americans were sold out of state. Many African Americans were sold directly to plantations in the Deep South, or transported by traders along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to slave markets in New Orleans (hence the later euphemism for any sort of betrayal, to be "sold down the river"). The sales were the result of reduced labor needs due to changes in local agriculture, as well as substantial out-migration by white families from Kentucky. In the 1840s and 1850s, white families migrated west to Missouri and Tennessee, even southwest to Texas. The larger slave-holding families took slaves with them on forced migration
Forced migration
Forced migration refers to the coerced movement of a person or persons away from their home or home region...
to Tennessee and Missouri. These factors combined to create greater instability for enslaved families in Kentucky than in some of the Deep South states.
Fugitive slaves
Because of Kentucky's proximity to free states, separated by just the Ohio River, it was relatively easier for a slave from Kentucky to escape to freedom. Notable fugitive slaveFugitive slave
In the history of slavery in the United States, "fugitive slaves" were slaves who had escaped from their master to travel to a place where slavery was banned or illegal. Many went to northern territories including Pennsylvania and Massachusetts until the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed...
s from Kentucky included Henry Bibb
Henry Bibb
Henry Walton Bibb was an author and abolitionist who was born a slave. After escaping from slavery to Canada, he returned to the US and lectured against slavery. Migrating to Canada, he founded a newspaper Voice of the Fugitive.-Biography:...
, Lewis Clarke
Lewis Clarke
Lewis Clarke was an ex-slave who published his experiences in his work, Narrative of the Sufferings of Lewis Clarke.Lewis Garrand Clarke was born in Madison County, Kentucky, seven miles from Richmond, in 1812. Depending on the source, Clarke's birth year is listed as 1812 or 1815...
, Margaret Garner
Margaret Garner
Margaret Garner was an enslaved African American woman in pre-Civil War America who was notorious - or celebrated - for killing her own daughter rather than allow the child to be returned to slavery. She and her family had escaped in January 1856 across the frozen Ohio River to Cincinnati, but...
, Lewis Hayden
Lewis Hayden
Lewis Hayden was an African American leader, ex-slave, abolitionist, businessman, Republican Party worker and a representative from Boston to the Massachusetts state legislature in 1873.-Early life:...
, and Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson was an author, abolitionist, and minister. Born into slavery in Charles County, Maryland, he escaped to Ontario, Canada in 1830, and founded a settlement and laborer's school for other fugitive slaves at Dawn, near Dresden in Kent County...
. A mass escape attempt occurred in August 1848 when 55 to 75armed slaves fled from several counties, representing one of the largest coordinated escape attempts in American history. They were captured by the state militia
Militia (United States)
The role of militia, also known as military service and duty, in the United States is complex and has transformed over time.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. " The term militia can be used to describe any number of groups within the...
several days later after a shootout.
Abolitionism
The abolition movementAbolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
had existed in the state since at least the 1790s, when Presbyterian minister David Rice
David Rice (Presbyterian minister)
David Rice , called "Father" David Rice and referred to by his contemporaries as the "Apostle to Kentucky," was a renowned antislavery Presbyterian minister during the antebellum era in the United States.- Biography :...
unsuccessfully lobbied to include slavery prohibition in each of the state's first two constitutions, created in 1792 and 1799. Baptist ministers David Barrow and Carter Tarrant formed the Kentucky Abolition Society in 1808. By 1822 it began publishing one of America's first anti-slavery periodicals.
Conservative emancipation, which argued for gradually freeing the slaves and assisting them in a return to Africa, gained substantial support in the state from the 1820s onward. Cassius Marcellus Clay was a vocal advocate of this position. His newspaper was shut down by mob action in 1845. The anti-slavery Louisville Examiner was published successfully from 1847 to 1849.
Politics
In Kentucky, slavery was not so widely considered an economic necessity as it was in most other slave stateSlave state
In the United States of America prior to the American Civil War, a slave state was a U.S. state in which slavery was legal, whereas a free state was one in which slavery was either prohibited from its entry into the Union or eliminated over time...
s. The small-farm nature of Kentucky meant that slave labor was not so critical to profits as it was for the labor-intensive crops of the Deep South, such as cotton, sugar, and rice farming.
Controversial laws in 1815 and 1833 limited the importation of slaves into Kentucky, which created the strictest rules of any slave states. The Nonimportation Act of 1833 banned any importation of slaves for commercial or personal purpose. The ban was widely violated, especially in counties near the Tennessee border. In 1849 the writing of the state's pro-slavery constitution meant repeal of the ban against importing.
Slavery was the principal issue of the third constitutional convention held in 1849. While the convention was convened by anti-slavery advocates who hoped to amend the constitution to prohibit slavery, they greatly underestimated pro-slavery support. The convention became packed with pro-slavery delegates, who drafted what some historians consider the most pro-slavery constitution in United States history.
After the embarrassing defeat, abolitionists lost political power during the 1850s. Nonetheless, anti-slavery newspapers were still published in Louisville and Newport
Newport, Kentucky
Newport is a city in Campbell County, Kentucky, United States, at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking rivers. The population was 15,273 at the 2010 census. Historically, it was one of four county seats of Campbell County. Newport is part of the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio Metro Area which...
. More than half the residents of Louisville owned slaves, and the city had the largest slave population in the state. In addition, for years the slave trade from the Upper South had contributed to its prosperity and growth. Through the 1850s, the city exported 2500-4000 slaves a year in sales to the Deep South. The trading city had grown rapidly and had 70,000 residents by 1860.
John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee
John Gregg Fee was an abolitionist, minister and educator, the founder of the town of Berea, Kentucky, and Berea College , the first in the state with interracial and coeducational admissions...
established a network of abolitionist schools, communities and churches in Eastern Kentucky, where slaveholders were the fewest in number. In the turmoil following John Brown's raid
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
on Harper's Ferry, Fee and his supporters were driven from the state by a mob in 1859.
Civil War
Kentucky did not outlaw slavery during the Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, as Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
and Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
did. Nevertheless, about 75% of slaves in Kentucky were freed or escaped to Union lines during the war. Slavery finally ended with ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, passed by the House on January 31, 1865, and adopted on December 6, 1865. On...
in 1865. However, Kentucky would not ratify it until 1976.
Further reading
- Kentucky Slave Narratives, Federal Writers' Project, 1936–1938, American Memory, Library of Congress
See also
- The Filson Historical SocietyThe Filson Historical SocietyThe Filson Historical Society is a historical society located in the Old Louisville neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. The organization was founded in 1884 and named after early Kentucky explorer John Filson, who wrote The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke, which included one...
- History of KentuckyHistory of KentuckyThe history of Kentucky spans hundreds of years, and has been influenced by the state's diverse geography and central location.-Origin of the name:The name "Kentucky" derived from an Iroquois name for the area south of the Ohio River...
- Kentucky in the American Civil War
- Louisville in the American Civil War