EIGHTH GRADE Part Ten: The coming war Now 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 the land we now called 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. And 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 gradually increase to twenty-five percent during the next seventy years. A slave at The Hermitage PHOTO: The Hermitage Life as a slave These slaves did all sorts of things. Some planted, cared for, and harvested corn, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Others were stone masons, brick makers and layers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and shoe makers. Still others worked on riverboats and iron foundry plantations. And some worked as house servants and barbers. Slaves also worked on monumental 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 grunt work when the State Capitol building was constructed in the 1850s. 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 whipped 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 wife, or your husband, or your parents, or your 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 believed to have been the first publication in American entirely devoted to the antislavery cause. Slaves had a tendency to be used mainly for farm labor. Because of this, the parts of Tennessee that were conducive to large farms had a tendency to have larger slave populations. Mountainous East Tennessee was generally dotted with small subsistence 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 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. An ad in a Nashville newspaper in the 1820s History books have a tendency to talk the most about the huge slave plantations, but that was the exception rather than the rule in Tennessee. In 1860 only forty-seven Tennessee slaveholders owned more than 100 slaves-- while 7,614 slaveholders owned between four and six slaves; 7,820 owned one slave; and the majority of white Tennesseans owned no slaves at all. Parson Brownlow PHOTO: TN State Library and Archives Prelude to War There are many interesting episodes to recount that illustrate different perspectives on life in Tennessee at that time. Click here to read about how slavery led to Nashville becoming a religious publishing center. Click here to read about Parson Brownlow, a political leader and Tennessee governor who may have been the greatest insulter to ever live. And click here to read about Henry Foote, a Unionist from Nashville and Jefferson Davis's harshest critic. 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, 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. In the presidential election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party weren't even on the ballot in Tennessee. The only candidates were John Bell (Opposition Party); John Breckinridge (Southern Democrats); and Stephen Douglas (Northern Democrats). Bell received the most votes of the three. 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. 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.  Johnson PHOTO: LOC 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. QUIZ 1) (TRUE OR FALSE) When the Civil War began, about one in ten Tennesseans were slaves. 2) In the 1850s, the number African-American slaves as a percentage of the general population was much higher in West Tennessee than in East Tennessee. What is the main reason for this? 3) (TRUE OR FALSE) On the eve of the Civil War, most white people in Tennessee owned slaves. 4) (TRUE OR FALSE) Tennessee was the last of the Southern states to secede from the Union. 5) What was the name of the U.S. Senator from Tennessee who chose to remain in Washington during the Civil War rather than resign? For quiz answers, click here.