The Frontier Against Slavery

Supporters of slavery were extremely proactive in getting state legislators to send petitions to Congress on the matter in the area Northwest of the Ohio between 1787-1824. The main impetus for their zeal was economic. Many were land speculators who noted the reluctance of slaveholders to move to Ohio as long as the slavery issue was unresolved: "Proslavery arguments stressed that slavery would relieve economic distress and increase the price of land" (16). Most of the new residents who settled in the region were nonslaveholders, but held little political influence. So committed were legislators to the passage of laws that would guarantee slavery, and thus lure slaveholders into the area, that the antislavery faction concentrated on sending counter-petitions to Congress rather than waste time on

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ter or settle in the state. Whites who encouraged or supported such entry were fined. Although many state exclusion laws were not effective because they were difficult to enforce, they demonstrate the degree of racial prejudice that existed at the time. So vexed were whites regarding the potential influence of large numbers of free black settlers, many legislatures in the Northwest proposed colonization as the ultimate solution to the "Negro Question." Colonization was the voluntary removal of blacks to their native Africa. Colonization societies were established in several states including Michigan, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin. In the opinion of one colonization advocate, "a separation from the whites [is] essential to the prosperity of the colored man . . . colonization at some point [offers] to him his only hope of deliverance" (55). Some blacks accepted offers to relocate to Africa, particularly Liberia; however, the colonization movement never caught on, partly because of lack of funding and partly because of the commitment of blacks to the country of their birth. Throughout the book, Berwanger points out that the debate on the extension of slavery was shaped largely by emigrants to the regions under question
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1540
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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