cotton, sugar, rum, molasses, and indigo which would then be carried to England and Europe and traded for manufactured goods. This procedure, repeated again and again from the time of the first slaves’ arrival in America in 1619 to the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, made trades at each stop on the triangle very wealthy. The Founding Fathers agreed, with a clause in the Constitution, to end the slave trade, but this did nothing to end the slave system. Slave owners simply continued to supply the slave market through “natural increase.” The loss of an external source of supply only made slaves more valuable.Nevertheless, by the 19th century most of the world had come to believe that slavery was wrong. Enlightenment ideals concerning the brotherhood of mankind had changed social perceptions, and slavery had been abolished almost everywhere in Europe and its colonies. It was very difficult for Americans to imagine ending slavery, however, because no one in the country had ever lived without it. In the seventy-five years since he foundation of the country, the North had gotten used to the idea that slaves were necessary to the South. Most of them believed that slave owners were kind to the slaves. They also believed that slaves were childlike and uneducable, and that if they were not kept as slaves they would not be able to take care of themselves. There was also the problem of what to do with the slaves if they were feed. No one, North or South, wanted to live with Negroes. Thus, for a long time, it was easier to live with slavery rather than to try to change it. As the U.S. expanded westward, however, slavery became a more pressing issue. Each new state entering the union shifted the balance of political power in Congress between slaves states and free states. This, together with the rise of the Abolition Movement in the 1830s and the religions revival called the “Great Awakening,” which ...
