http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/keyword/american-slavery Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:45:29 -0400 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:45:29 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1858/the-lingering-influence-of-revolutionary-political-discourse-from-the-civil-war-and-reconstruction-era By Bhadrajee S. Hewage - The Civil War was a seminal moment in the historical development in the United States. The American Revolution may have created the U.S. as a sovereign nation, but the Civil War helped to determine what kind of nation America would become. The Reconstruction era, from Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation to Hayes's removal of federal troops from the South in 1877, further defined how exactly the U.S. would evolve into the nation that it is today. By examining the attitudes towards the extension of slavery in the pre-war U.S., the decisions taken by the Union and Confederate governments during... Fri, 08 Jan 2021 10:45 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1858/the-lingering-influence-of-revolutionary-political-discourse-from-the-civil-war-and-reconstruction-era http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1845/bonds-of-slavery-and-bonds-of-love-investigating-the-role-of-african-american-families-and-marital-unions-in-the-struggle-against-slavery By Xavier G. Reader - Resistance to oppression is often found in the most unlikely of places. This article investigates the significance that families and partnerships played in fostering the emotional support necessary to sustain enslaved peoples throughout the onslaught of slavery in the antebellum South. Despite the ever-present threat of separation and sale that sought to split families and spouses apart, the bonds of love that enslaved African-Americans held and shared were not easily severed. This examination of the lived experiences of enslaved folk demonstrates that the creation, mutability, and endurance of... Sat, 28 Nov 2020 10:03 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1845/bonds-of-slavery-and-bonds-of-love-investigating-the-role-of-african-american-families-and-marital-unions-in-the-struggle-against-slavery http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1763/echoes-of-web-du-bois-double-consciousness-in-the-narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass By Mohammed Ritchane - A detailed analysis through a text-based study of Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (1845) will allow the reader to see the characteristics of double-consciousness dramatized in exactly the same way they would be delineated by Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Hence, this study of the Narrative with the aim of revealing all the aspects pertaining to double-consciousness would concentrate on the text as a closed system, putting aside all extraneous material so that the text, by itself, be considered a repository... Sat, 20 Apr 2019 10:40 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1763/echoes-of-web-du-bois-double-consciousness-in-the-narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1751/the-captains-compromise-political-symbolism-in-herman-melvilles-benito-cereno By Brian Chen - Until the outbreak of civil war, the United States would continually try and fail to subdue the existential threat of slavery, with each attempt exacerbating the sectional tensions between slave and free states. In 1830, Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster claimed that the country stood on the “precipice of disunion” and foresaw a future in which “the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union” are drenched in “fraternal blood.”[1] As tribalism tore away the shared history between the North and South, Webster’s grim prediction would eventually... Wed, 09 Jan 2019 10:37 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1751/the-captains-compromise-political-symbolism-in-herman-melvilles-benito-cereno http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1445/creating-life-within-the-confines-of-slavery-comparing-northrups-memoir-twelve-years-a-slave-and-genoveses-the-world-the-slaves-made By Hayley E. Tartell - Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave (1853) provides a comprehensive first-hand account of slavery that both corroborates and challenges Eugene Genovese’s argument in his later analysis of the institution of slavery in The World the Slaves Made (1976). Genovese’s description of slaves’ recognition of their situation is reflected in Northup’s picture of slavery. By the same token, resilience and determination to live life as fully as possible – despite the narrow confines to which life was restrained by the slaveholding institution – is epitomized in... Tue, 13 Sep 2016 09:27 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1445/creating-life-within-the-confines-of-slavery-comparing-northrups-memoir-twelve-years-a-slave-and-genoveses-the-world-the-slaves-made http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1409/the-uprisings-of-nat-turner-and-john-brown-response-and-treatment-from-the-abolitionist-movement-and-the-press By Franco A. Paz - This paper examines two influential slave uprisings and the treatment these received by both the abolitionist movement and the press. The first section explores the country’s reaction to John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, as well as his subsequent trial, conviction, and execution. The second section discusses the media coverage of and reaction to the Southampton Insurrection, the largest slave rebellion in the history of the United States. The third section explores the contrasting reactions to Nat Turner’s and John Brown’s respective revolts, and analyzes some... Mon, 23 May 2016 05:55 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1409/the-uprisings-of-nat-turner-and-john-brown-response-and-treatment-from-the-abolitionist-movement-and-the-press http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1072/the-concept-of-property-and-ownership-in-the-antebellum-american-south-slaves-slaveholders-theft-conflict-and-the-law By John Wood - The role of personal property in our lives is one that to a very great extent we take for granted. We, in a crowded country such as the UK, all clearly understand that some things are ‘ours’, some things ‘others’ and some things ‘public’, most people in Western society have a fully developed conception of ownership and property from an early age. For slaves, condemned by law to be treated as property due to being the descendants of black Africans imported in the pre-revolutionary period,1 and their white masters, as those who owned other human beings as property... Thu, 01 Jan 2015 07:58 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1072/the-concept-of-property-and-ownership-in-the-antebellum-american-south-slaves-slaveholders-theft-conflict-and-the-law http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1277/reliving-american-slavery-in-12-years-a-slave By Dustin R. Turin - As if for the first time, the film unveiled the simple and uncorrupted evil that was American slavery, the institution we would rather forget but which stalks nevertheless through our nation’s all-too-recent history. The place whereto we are delivered is soul-crushing, a black hole of hatred so virulent as to extinguish any notion of redemption. We bear witness to a reality from which we have been feverishly running: American slavery, in its fundamental brutality, by virtue of its massive scale, and on account of its lengthy tenure, was one of the worst crimes in human history. Yes: as bad... Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:34 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1277/reliving-american-slavery-in-12-years-a-slave http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1674/sexual-relations-between-elite-white-women-and-enslaved-men-in-the-antebellum-south-a-socio-historical-analysis By Anon S. Anon - There is ample evidence of sexual relations, from rapes to what appear to be relatively symbiotic romantic partnerships, between white slave masters and black women in the Antebellum South. Much rarer were sexual relations between white women and black slave men, yet they too occurred. Using an intersectional socio-historical analysis, this paper explores the factors that contributed or may have contributed to the incidence of sexual encounters between elite white women and slave men, the power dynamics embedded in them, and their implications in terms of sexual consent. The paper demonstrates... Sun, 18 Aug 2013 04:44 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1674/sexual-relations-between-elite-white-women-and-enslaved-men-in-the-antebellum-south-a-socio-historical-analysis http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/372/slavery-and-religion-in-the-antebellum-south By Iulia O. Basu-Zharku - For many decades, scholars have debated the importance of religion in helping slaves cope with the horrible experience of slavery in the antebellum South. However, the way they treated the subject differs and the conclusions they reached are varied. From the early 1920s through the 1960s, the accent was put on the variety of religious traditions and rituals of the antebellum Southern slaves, but without them receiving the credit for these traditions, which were considered as being adaptations of European beliefs and rituals. Later on, in the 1970s and 1980s these traditions are considered as actually... Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:26 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/372/slavery-and-religion-in-the-antebellum-south