Northern Emancipation 1783 - Essay Example

Both the religious leaders and the revolutionist were instrumental and played important role in the events that finally lead to emancipation of the north in1783 (Fiske, 2003). During this time, the African Americans were freed through escape, legal petitions and cases and manumission and hence the process did not take place in a fortnight but was a gradual process. However, one of the reasons for freedom of the African Americans was that the slavery was not economical like the other parts of the America because there were very few firms while the immigrant’s work force was on the higher end.

The uneconomical; nature of slavery together with the efforts of the revolutionists enlightened the most people of the north and their moral views on slavery begun to change gradually. This was also coupled with the push for wage labor by the market economy because of the higher immigrants and low agricultural productivity (Fiske, 2003). As observed by Fiske (2003), in the north, the slavery begun to wither because the slave-owners realized that slavery was impractical due to the agricultural limitations as well as the lack of plantation agriculture that was witnessed in other parts of the nation.

This was also accompanied by the non agrarian economic activities that made it even difficult to practice agricultural activities in the region. This resulted into the increase in the other forms of entrepreneurship and hence slavery was becoming irrelevant. Slaves were looked at as liabilities for the owners but were no longer viewed as important assets. As a result there was a shift in the economy of the northern part of the nation. These economic changes forced the slave owners to abandon their slavery.

According to Ludlow (1862), this happened because “the slave owners were forced to confront their own hypocrisy, having born witness to the heroic efforts of black patriots during the revolution, chose to abandon slavery on economic and moral grounds. Most of the blacks had participated in the colony’s struggle for freedom and hence it was immoral for the white to keep them as slaves while they had shown their patriotism to the nation while they struggled for independence. The blacks were mainly influenced by the Jefferson’s discourse on the natural rights and liberty (Ludlow, 1862).

As a result of this, many whites in the north took the issue of rights and liberty seriously and hence begun to emancipate their slaves while the revolutionary war was heightened. Because of these efforts and revolutionary influences, Vermont became the first to abolish slavery in the north during the year 1777. This was then followed by Massachusetts in the year 1783 which resulted into the ending of slavery in many other states that were practicing slavery. Other states that followed were Rhode Island and Connecticut in the year 1784.

New York and New Jersey abolished slavery in the years 1785 and 1786 respectively (Ludlow, 1862). This indicates that the lack of agricultural productivity only did not influence the abolishment of slavery trade but there were also some important revolutionary influences. Jefferson played an important role in the process since he initiated a discourse that would finally lead to the change in perception and the views of the northern whites with regard to slavery activities. The northern emancipation was however very unique and special compared to the other end of slavery