Visualizing Slavery, UIC Library #4
No wonder ante-bellum Southern white slaveowners were so paranoid about a slave revolt (especially after 1831). No wonder they made teaching slaves to read and write illegal. In most southern states, at least 25% of the population were black slaves, who they had to have known weren't happy at being, essentially, in prison. In South Carolina and Mississippi, blacks outnumbered whites! As late as 1960, Tunica County, in northwestern Mississippi, was 80% black.
It's also no wonder that after the passage of fugitive slave laws, runaway slaves, knowing they weren't safe even in the North, went all the way to Canada. And, as in the case of Josiah Henson, stayed.
Visualizing Slavery, UIC Library #4
No wonder ante-bellum Southern white slaveowners were so paranoid about a slave revolt (especially after 1831). No wonder they made teaching slaves to read and write illegal. In most southern states, at least 25% of the population were black slaves, who they had to have known weren't happy at being, essentially, in prison. In South Carolina and Mississippi, blacks outnumbered whites! As late as 1960, Tunica County, in northwestern Mississippi, was 80% black.
It's also no wonder that after the passage of fugitive slave laws, runaway slaves, knowing they weren't safe even in the North, went all the way to Canada. And, as in the case of Josiah Henson, stayed.