Slavery and the Antebellum South

In the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), Northern states were more successful at diversifying their economy to incorporate more industrial production. At the same time, free Blacks and white abolitionists were also instrumental in getting legislation passed that gradually restricted slavery in the North. Often, while enslaved people were not themselves freed, their children were reclassified as indentured servants and continued to support white families as they grew up, often for many years. Slavery remained an even more entrenched institution in the South. White landowners in the antebellum South forced enslaved people to work on plantations and treated them brutally. As slavery flourished in the South, enslaved people themselves began to fight for their freedom—eventually achieving...