|
The history of slavery in Kentucky dates from the earliest permanent European settlements in the state, until the end of the Civil War. Kentucky was classified as the Upper South or a Border state,〔(Tobacco and Staple Agriculture )〕 and enslaved African Americans represented up to 25% of the population before the Civil War, concentrated in the cities of Louisville and Lexington, both in the fertile Bluegrass Region, a center of tobacco plantations and horse farms. ==Overview== Early Kentucky history was built on slave labor, and it was an integral part of the state's economy. From 1790 to 1860, the slave population of Kentucky was never more than one-quarter of the total population. After 1830, as tobacco production decreased in favor of less labor-intensive crops, many planters sold their slaves to markets in the Deep South, where the demand for agricultural labor rose rapidly as cotton cultivation was expanded. Kentucky's slave population was concentrated in the central "bluegrass" region of the state, which was rich in farmland. In 1850, 23 percent of Kentucky's white males held enslaved African Americans. Early travelers to Kentucky in the 1750s and 1760s from Virginia brought their slaves with them. As permanent settlers started arriving in the late 1770s, especially after the American Revolution, they brought along slaves to clear and develop the land. Early settlements were called stations and developed around forts for protection against Native Americans, with whom there were numerous violent conflicts. Most of the early settlers were from Virginia, and they continued to rely on slave labor as they developed larger, more permanent plantations. Planters who grew hemp and tobacco, which were labor-intensive crops, held more slaves than did smaller farmers who cultivated mixed crops. Subsistence farming could be done without any slave labor, although some subsistence farmers held a few slaves with whom they would work. Some owners also used enslaved African Americans in mining and manufacturing operations, for work on riverboats and along the waterfront, and to work in skilled trades in towns. Early farms in Kentucky tended to be smaller than the later plantations of the Deep South, so most slaveholders had a small number of slaves. As a result, many slaves had to find spouses "abroad", on a neighboring farm. Often, African American men had to live apart from their wives and children. Free blacks were among the slaveholders; in 1830, free blacks held slaves in 29 of Kentucky's counties.〔 In some cases, people would purchase their spouse, their children, or other enslaved relatives in order to protect them until they could free them. After the Nat Turner Slave Rebellion of 1831, the legislature passed new restrictions against owners freeing their slaves, requiring acts of the legislature to gain freedom.〔[http://nkaa.uky.edu/subject.php?sub_id=179 ''Notable Kentucky African Americans Database: Beginning in the 1820s and extending through the 1840s and 1850s, many white families migrated west to Missouri and Tennessee, or southwest to Texas. The larger slave-holding families took slaves with them, as one kind of forced migration. These factors combined to create greater instability for enslaved families in Kentucky than in some other areas. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of slavery in Kentucky」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|