American Lives as they were before, during, and after The Civil War - Essay Example

ix). Of course this was in reference to slavery and ensuring that there would one day be the possibility to eliminate slavery from the face of the United States altogether. From a historical perspective it can be assumed that this was one of the main forces that led up to the beginnings of the Civil War. Southerners were against freeing slaves and when the two sides clashed it promoted a split of ideas across the borders and states of the country. All of this took a great deal of time before War seemed to be the only way to change the future outcome of the people in America.

Many states in the Deep South had their own particular way of life before the civil war. Many of the upper class southerners had huge slave plantations that were ran by enslaved African Americans. Some of the slave masters were decent individuals who treated their workers fairly and without prejudice yet they kept them as slaves which went against many beliefs of those in the Northern states of the country. . one well known area that utilized slave workers quite abundantly and as has been stated there were differing degrees to how this was carried out and how it was perceived.

The frontier of plantations in Florida was abundant in the era before the civil war, with these lands accruing miles upon miles of land. Many of them had cotton and sugar, of which slave women would work in, picking the cotton and processing the sugar, then the plantation owners selling it for sustenance to live on. Of course there was great wealth to be made for those who owned slave plantations in the time period under discussion (Baptist 2002, p.1). Furthermore, history shows that there were many reasons why there was such a high migration to the Deep South by white citizens, especially to the region of Florida and the outlying states surrounding it.

The soil was good for planting in the state as well as growing orchards for spring harvests, of which many southerners were very found of. Before the civil war, white upper class southern families had their fortunes laid out for them. They had opportunities that were vast and land that was open for claiming, however their abuse of African Americans and using them as slave workers the way the did was one of the very reasons that destroyed the southern way of life (Baptist 2002, pg.1). Though times were extremely good for the white settlers, they were extremely poor for the black people of the south.

The reason for this was there was no equality, no chance for African Americans to break free from the chains of slavery, no opportunities to become separate individuals from their slave masters. For African Americans, many times their lives seemed hopeless to them as they were sold in and out of slavery, never being able to hold on to any form of