FIFTH GRADE Part One: Slavery and Tennessee's war First, we're going to talk about the institution of slavery and how arguments over it eventually led to Civil War. Slaves in Virginia in 1862 PHOTO: Library of Congress There was a time when there were slaves in every American colony. When people began crossing the Appalachian Mountains and settling in Tennessee, some of them brought African-American slaves with them. For instance, two slaves were with the Donelson Party that left east Tennessee for Nashville in 1779. One of them died along the way. As parts of Tennessee became converted from wilderness into farmland, more slaves were brought in. By 1790 it is estimated that ten percent of the people who lived in Tennessee were slaves, a percentage that would increase to twenty-five percent by the time of the Civil War. Hannah Jackson, a slave at The Hermitage PHOTO: The Hermitage Life as a slave These slaves did all sorts of things. Some planted and harvested corn, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Others were stone masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, and shoe makers. Still others worked on riverboats and iron foundry plantations. And some worked as house servants. Slaves also worked on big projects. They operated some of Tennessee's early mines. They dug the tunnel through the Cumberland Plateau for the Nashville & Chattanooga Railway. They did much of the work when the State Capitol building was constructed in the 1850s. A sign at The Hermitage about one of the slaves, Alfred, and the way he felt about his status. Click on the image and read it. And how were these slaves treated? Hard for us to know, really, because most of them were not taught how to read or write, so very few of them kept diaries. Some were treated with some degree of humanity, and some were treated poorly. Those brave enough to run away (and many of them tried to) were generally beaten if they were caught. And they were considered second-class citizens (or maybe third-class citizens).  They could not vote. They could not sue anyone in court. They were not allowed to assemble, except for church. Although some slaves lived their entire lives near the company of their families, many slaves were sold away from their familes. Today it would be hard to imagine how it would feel to be forced to permanently leave your parents, brothers and sisters. But this did happen to slaves. In the 1930s, the federal government interviewed many elderly African-Americans who had been born into slavery. Some of what we know about the lives of slaves came from these interviews. Click here to read one of these stories. As the institution of slavery spread in Tennessee's early decades, there were people in Tennessee opposed to it. In 1796 and again in 1834 Tennessee elected a convention that wrote a new Constitution. On each occasion, a vocal minority tried, and failed, to have slavery banned in Tennessee. And in 1820 Elihu Embree, an iron manufacturer in Jonesborough, began publishing a monthly newspaper called The Emancipator. This is said to have been the first publication in America entirely devoted to the antislavery cause. Slaves were more often used for farm labor. Because of this, the parts of Tennessee where you were likely to find large farms had larger slave populations. Mountainous East Tennessee was generally dotted with small farms and had much fewer slaves than the rest of the state. Meanwhile, West Tennessee had a tendency to have large cotton plantations that were largely operated by slave labor. By the eve of the Civil War, African Americans comprised only EIGHT percent of the people in East Tennessee, TWENTY-FIVE percent of the people in Middle Tennessee, and FORTY percent of the people in West Tennessee. Parson Brownlow PHOTO: TN State Library and Archives Prelude to War In the 1840s and 1850s, Tennessee residents closely followed the events that were beginning to tear America apart, such as Nat Turner's Rebellion, John Brown's Raid, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the arguments over the Compromise of 1850. Opinions were divided. In general, Tennessee's leaders sided with the rest of the South on most arguments. But Tennessee's leaders were far less inclined to talk about secession than the leaders from other Southern states. As your history book should tell you, Lincoln's victory in the national election resulted in the immediate secession of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. But Tennessee did not immediately secede. In fact, on February 9, 1861, a statewide referendum showed that an overwhelming majority of voting Tennesseans still favored remaining in the Union. In Nashville, for instance, there were two daily newspapers: in February and March of that year, one favored secession while the other said that Tennessee should remain in the Union. But after the fall of Ft. Sumter, and after President Lincoln began raising an army, opinions changed dramatically. In June, 1861, Tennesseans voted 105,000 to 47,000 to secede from the Union. The only part of the state that voted with the Union was East Tennessee, which voted 33,000 to 15,000 against the idea of joining the Confederacy. During the next few months, regiments were raised all over the state. Most of the people who enlisted in Tennessee did so for the Confederate cause, but quite a few enlisted for the Union.  Andrew Johnson PHOTO: Library of Congress Meanwhile, one of the two men who had been representing Tennessee in the U.S. Senate (Democrat John Bell) resigned his seat and came back to Nashville. The other (Democrat Andrew Johnson) chose to remain with the Union. President Lincoln later appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee, and in 1864, Johnson became Lincoln's vice president. There are many places on Tennessee History for Kids to learn more about this era. Click here to read about how slavery led to Nashville becoming a publishing center; here to read about Parson Brownlow, a Tennessee governor who may have been the greatest insulter to ever live; here to read about Henry Foote, a harsh critic of Jefferson Davis from Nashville who was elected to the Confederate Congress; here to read about William Walker, a Tennessean who played a part on the international stage; here to read about Matthew Maury, the father of oceanography; here to read about the development of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railway; and here to read about how an argument about slavery caused a county to change its name... sort of. QUIZ 1) (TRUE OR FALSE) When the Civil War began, about one in ten Tennesseans were slaves. 2) Why were there more slaves in West Tennessee than in East Tennessee? 3) (TRUE OR FALSE) A majority of the people who lived in East Tennessee wanted to remain in the Union in 1861. 4) What was the name of the U.S. Senator from Tennessee who chose to remain in Washington during the Civil War rather than resign? Click here for quiz answers. And click here to read the next section, about the Civil War in Tennessee.