Did The North American States Have Slaves?

In this post, we will explore some important questions related to slavery in the United States of America.

Those questions are:

• Did the states of North America have slaves?
• Was that number more or less than the Southern states?
• If less then why? And if more, then why?

So, let’s start with the first question.

Did The North American States Have Slaves?

Before slavery was officially banned in the United States, this was a common thing that white Europeans and Americans to capture black people from Africa and brought them to their own countries for slavery.

Although the importance of slaves started decreasing in Northern states due to some reasons, especially because of industrialization. But still, some people in the North used slaves.

The main reason was, before the Civil War, slavery was still not yet completely banned (though a few states took early initiative), and also it wasn’t declared a crime via the constitution of the United States.

However, compared to the Southern states, the number was tiny in the North.

[Important: Not all the black people in America were slaves. Some blacks who came to the continent around the 17th century were free people. They migrated here to work on ships and do other small jobs]

Why The Number Was Tiny In The North?

The difference between both sides’ economic dependency was the main reason for the gap. Actually, the Northern part of the United States was highly industrialized.

Modern machines controlled their main economic activities. Capitalism was its core ideology.

Capitalists used wage-based laborers and modern machines to fulfilling production procedures. And therefore, slaves played quite a less important role here.

But on the other hand, Southern states’ economy was dependent upon agriculture; they used modern machines in very small quantities.

For generating profits through cultivation, they can’t rely on hiring wage-based laborers. This was the core reason, why the importance of slaves in Southern states was so much higher.

Here, unlike the capitalists, the landlords performed the main role in the economic field and they never wanted the US government to ban slavery under any circumstances.

Were There Any States That Didn’t Have Slaves?

Many states in the United States of America took some early initiatives to abolish slavery. However, all those states were from the northern part.

In 1777, the state of Vermont abolished slavery.  During the American Revolutionary war, it declared independence from the 13 colonies.

Although, in 1791 when it rejoined the union, it became the very first state, which had no slavery.

The other early initiative taker states are:

• Pennsylvania (1780)
• New Hampshire (1783)
• Massachusetts (1783)
• Connecticut (1784)
• Rhode Island (1784)

Because of these initiatives by the Northern states, the south named them ‘Abolitionists’.

When Did Each State In US Abolish Slavery?

From December, the year 1865; every single state in the United States of America officially had to end slavery forever.

Through the 13th amendment of the US constitution, Congress declared slavery an abominable crime against humanity.

However, it still took more time to see effective results from the official ban.