Analysis on The Frontier Against Slavery - Book Report/Review Example

The book author, Eugene Berwanger discusses the adoption of Congress’ Northwest Ordinance and its establishment of the Northwest Ohio Territory consisting of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. This ordinance limits slavery’s expansion and banned slavery immediately. However, because it applied only to the Northwest Territory, the ordinance left the huge region south of the OhioRiver subject to slavery expansion. Slavery at that time was considered by the southern States slaveholders as the common thing and a discriminated behavior for the slave was a common practice.

However, in the northern States most of the people have the views of not having the slaves. Eugene Berwanger in his book, The Frontier against Slavery follows the issue of resistance and efforts against expansion of slavery that was continuously extending in the Northwest of Ohio, California, Plain states and Pacific Northwest and informs that this struggle met with profound ethnic abhorrence. By studying the book, it is quite clear that the written content is for scholars, instructors, students of history and law and other people interested in history.

The book is quite analytical in its content and not only gives detailed information about the events related to slavery and anti-slavery issues in the eighteenth and nineteenth century but also a critical overview of the author related to the situations occurring at the time. The book’s content is well written for the historians as well as the history students. Societal behaviors were not given much importance in eighteenth century. In this way, the content of the book provides a brief history of the societal behaviors and the trends followed by the people during the colonial times in seventeen and eighteenth century.

The book displays an intention for the teachers as well as the students to be familiar with the different approaches that were followed by different people at the colonial time to earn money and make profit by utilizing the tactics of the slavery as well as tactics opposing slavery. Slaves were mostly kept on the farms where they worked all day and they were given no wages. Only shelter and clothing was given and that too was of inhuman quality. The writer writes about the trade of the steam boat.

The trade of the steam boats increased as the laws against the slavery dominated and the prices of different products fell to a certain level. The publisher of the book is the University of Illinois press and the year of the publication of the book is 1967. The book was manufactured in the United States of America. As it is University press publication, it has more value as a reference text for the history students as well as other students. It is a scholarly publication and thus, provides unique and good information for the students and the tutors.

The book utilizes footnotes that provide a brief description of the content and the source of the content. Footnotes are quite descriptive and give detailed information about the cited reference. The writer has used primary as well as secondary sources and has given specific headings to the bibliography section. The writer has made good utilization of the sources such as Burnett’s Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer (1880), Annual Report of American Anti-Slavery Society (1857-58), Blair’s Collection of Pamphlets on the Slavery Question, Carter’s The Territory of Indiana, 1810-1816 (1939), Constitution of the State of