EOTO Pro-slavery vs. Anti-slavery
- mamend9
- Sep 29, 2017
- 2 min read
On September 27th, two litigation teams in my First Year Seminar, Talking About Freedom, gave separate presentations pertaining to slavery in the Unites States. The presentations are called "Each One Teach One", or EOTO for short.
The first team to deliver their presentation described events in the past that supported the idea of slavery. Some of the events they elaborated on included Virginia's first Africans, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, The Lecompton Constitution, The War of 1861, and Bleeding Kansas.
The First Litigation Team
The event that was most interesting to me was Bleeding Kansas. It was a period of time in Kansas when division, tension, and violence were at all time highs. Bleeding Kansas took place from 1854 to 1859. Kansas did not decide if it was a free state or a slave state by geographic location, but by what the people wanted. This led to citizens flooding in from the North and the South in an attempt to shape the future of Westward expansion.
During these 6 years, violent crimes were committed by abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates alike. Abolitionists led by John Brown attempted to take over a US armory but failed. They also facilitated the Pottawatomie Massacre where five pro-slavery men were killed. On the other side, Pro-slavery advocates burned down the town that was known as 'The Hotbed of Abolitionism".
The second team to present described events that supported the anti-slavery sentiment. They mentioned events such as The Missouri Compromise, The Emancipation Proclamation, The Underground Railroad, and Abraham Lincoln's election.
The Second Litigation Team
The most interesting event to me that they shared is the Emancipation Proclamation. It was put into action by Abraham Lincoln right before the third year of the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation set free all slaves in any of the 10 still rebelling states. What caught me off guard was that this did not include border states such as Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland.
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