History you Need to Know Before The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Slavery and the Civil War

A Divided Country North – industrial manufacturing and exporting of finished goods South – agricultural Economical differences lead to tension

The Issue of Slavery Obvious differences between North and South Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration Plantation system made slavery a necessity to most Slave trade “ended” in – three million of African descent 1860 – four million

Slavery cont… Many defended slavery Valuable property was treated well Truth – brutal – basic necessities stripped away, as well as basic rights

Slavery cont… Revolts and Runaways 1800 – militia put down over a thousand 1822 – Denmark Versey hanged for organizing a revolt North – strong movement for abolishing slavery Leader – William Lloyd Garrison Underground Railroad – Harriet Tubman

Slavery cont… Fugitive Slave Act – 1850 Missouri Compromise – 1820/1850 Kansas/Nebraska Act – 1854 Supreme Court’s Dred Scott Decision

Secession and Civil War Abraham Lincoln – 1860 president Seven states already seceded from the Union 1861 – Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis their new president Robert E. Lee – Union/Confederate Civil War – 1860 (1)? – 1865 Ulysses S. Grant

Literature of Abolition and Protest New England Renaissance writers Emerson, Thoreau, Whittier, Lowell New England Anti-Slavery Society 1850 – two thousand Abolitionist societies Publishers – William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas Novelist – Harriet Beecher Stowe Slave Narrative – F.D.

Literature of the War 1 st Stage – honor and heroism – trying to bring the nation back together and gain common identity Romanticized the war Lincoln speech, Walt Whitman (poetry) 2 nd Stage – Courage and Heroism myths Results of accident or panic under pressure Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane