isolated in an international context. Orlando Patterson is clearly correct when he asserts that, with the exception of the modern era, slavery has always been widespread. Throughout most of human history there has been nothing "peculiar" about human bondage. But by 1861 the racially based slavery of the United States was "peculiar" because it could be found only in the American South, in Spain's few remaining New World colonies, and in Brazil. By this time England, France, and the Netherlands had abolished slavery in their New World colonies. South of the Rio Grande Spain's once gigantic mainland empire was now independent and without slavery. In the context of the Atlantic community, slavery was increasingly considered cruel and uncivilized. Symbolic of the South's isolation was the 1856 Republican Party pledge "to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism--Polygamy and Slavery." Once the dominant form of labor in the New World, slavery was now an isolated relic of a less enlightened and more barbaric age. By the time of Lincoln's election in 1860 eighteen of the states prohibited slavery, while in fifteen the institution remained legal. When the Civil War began, American slavery was geographically and culturally peculiar; more free states were on the horizon, with Kansas and Colorado joining the Union before the end of the Civil War. African Americans where not subservient during this era, steadily the number of fugitive slaves increased. As Africans where increasingly denied their rights, rebellions also increased. Some engaged in outward rebellious activity before breaking free; most simply ran into the wilderness, rivers, or to the docks. At times runaways consolidated their strengths and banned together to form small guerilla bands that maintained a constant opposition to surrounding white society and its laws. Slaves also challenged that control more directly through active resistance. Their ability to resist wa...
