From Slavery to Freedom E-Book

Thomas Weedon

• Herausgeber: Ernst Klett Sprachen GmbH
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 60

Beschreibung

Not und Elend der Sklaven in den Südstaaten Amerikas, abenteuerliche Flucht und schließlich Befreiung am Ende des Bürgerkrieges. From Slavery to Freedom beschreibt in fünf spannenden Episoden das Schicksal der Sklaven auf den Baumwollplantagen im 19. Jahrhundert und gibt einen tiefen Einblick in das Leben einer gespaltenen Nation. Nachdem unter Präsident Lincoln Bruder gegen Bruder in den Krieg gezogen war, was zur Abschaffung der Sklaverei führte, wurde der Grundstein für einen langen und steinigen Weg zur Gleichberechtigung gelegt. Die an geschichtlichen Fakten reiche Lektüre bietet einen leichten Zugang zu einem der wichtigsten Meilensteine nordamerikanischer Geschichte.

Leseprobe

Thomas Weedon

From Slavery to Freedom

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Die E-Book-Ausgabe des Titels enthält das Audiobuch eingebettet in den Content.

1. Auflage1 Version 1 | 2020

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© Ernst Klett Sprachen GmbH, Rotebühlstraße 77, 70178 Stuttgart, 2009. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Internetadresse: www.klett-sprachen.de

Satz: Satzkasten, Stuttgart

Illustrationen: Christa Janik, Leinfelden-Echterdingen

Umschlaggestaltung: Elmar Feuerbach

Umschlagbild: alamy / North Wind Picture Archives

Textillustration: Walter Rieck, Heilbronn

Kartenskizze: Gottfried Wustmann, Mötzingen

eISBN 978-3-12-909086-2

Contents

Introduction

A Slave Runs Away

Railroad to Freedom

The Burning Question

Brother against Brother

The Slaves are Free

Introduction

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In 1776 Britain’s thirteen American colonies decided to break away from the mother country and call themselves the United States of America. After more than five years of bitter struggle they won their freedom, and the world recognized them as a new and independent republic, founded on the principle that all men are createdequal.

All men are created equal. These famous words were written by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence. It was a proud beginning for a new nation. America was the land of equality, the land of freedom. No American doubted it in those early days of independence. But it was again Thomas Jefferson who reminded his countrymen not many years later that in the land of freedom there were over 700,000 men, women, and children, who lived as slaves. They were the negroes in the South. They had no rights; they could not vote; the law did not recognize them as human beings, but only as ‘things’ that could be bought and sold.

Jefferson was a southerner himself. He came from Virginia and he knew how the slaves lived. “I tremble for my country,” he said in 1784, “when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever.”

Jefferson’s anxiety about slavery was shared by many Americans, both in the North and the South. They looked on it as an evil custom left over from the old days of Colonial rule and they hoped that it would gradually disappear as the new American nation developed. What happened, however, was exactly the opposite.

In 1790 the large majority of the slaves worked on the southern cottonplantations, mainly in South Carolina and Georgia. The growing textile industry in England and the north-east of the United States made cotton-planting the most profitable occupation in the South. In 1793 the cotton gin was invented. This machine for cleaning the cotton fibres could do the work of fifty men in one day. More and more cotton was grown. More and more slaves were needed for the cotton fields. Cotton-planting spread westwards into Alabama and Mississippi. The South grew rich, and the powerful cotton planters became its leaders. By 1850 the cotton belt stretched from South Carolina on the Atlantic Coast to Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern Texas. ‘Cotton is King!’ said the southerners. The whole life of the South depended on King Cotton – and on the work of his toiling black slaves. In 1860 at the height of the cotton boom, there were nearly 4,000,000 negro slaves in the South.

Thomas Jefferson’s warning came true. For eighty years the dark shadow of slavery lay over the young, free nation who believed that all men are created equal. Sometimes they tried to pretend that the problem did not exist; sometimes they tried to compromise with it. But in the end no compromise was possible between freedom and slavery. It was a terrible test that they had to face.

to recognize ['rekəgnaız] to be willing to accept anerkennen

independent not controlled by others unabhängig

to create [kri'eıt] to make schaffen

equal of the same quality, the same gleich

equalityGleichheit

to doubt s.th. [daʊt] to think that s.th. is perhaps not true an etwas zweifeln

slaveAnt: a free man; Sklave

to vote to elect wählen (Politik)

human being person Mensch

to tremble to shake with fear or cold zittern

to reflect to think deeply, to consider überlegen, nachdenken

just fair gerecht

justice fair treatment Gerechtigkeit

anxiety [æŋ'zaıəti] fear, uncertainty Angst, Besorgnis

to share to have in common teilen

evil ['i:vəl] Ant: good; schlecht, übel

graduallyadv. step by step allmählich

to develop to grow sich entwickeln

majority [mə'dʒɒrəti] the greater part Mehrzahl

cottonBaumwolle

plantationCf: plant (Pflanze); Pflanzung, Plantage

occupation work Beschäftigung

gin machine for separating cotton from the seeds Entkörnungsmaschine

to invent to make s.th. which did not exist before erfinden

fibre [faıbə] Faser

belt a wide strip of land Gürtel

to depend onabhängen von

to toil to work hard schuften, sich plagen

height [haıt] highest point Höhepunkt, Höhe

boom in business a time of great activity and quick money-making wirtschaftlicher Aufschwung, Hochkonjunktur

to come true to really happen wahr werden

to pretend to act falsely vortäuschen, tun als ob

to compromiseEntgegenkommen zeigen

A Slave Runs Away

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What was life like on a big cotton plantation in the days of the ‘old South’?

The master’s house was large and had usually ten or twelve rooms, often luxuriouslyfurnished. Broad stone steps at the front of the house led up to a porch, which was supported by tall, white pillars.

The ‘big house’, as the slaves called it, was surrounded by wide lawns, trees, and well-kept flowerbeds. Behind it were orchards, vegetable gardens, and stables. Then came fields of watermelons, sweet potatoes, and corn. Beyond these the broad cotton fields stretched away to the forest in the distance. Near the cotton fields was a group of small, whitewashed buildings, made of wood. These were the one-roomed cabins of the slaves.

The negroes received no wages. Their master gave them a weekly ration of salt pork, meal, and molasses. His wife usually saw to the slaves’ clothing and sometimes taught the negro women to make dresses from homespun cloth.

Although the negroes lived as slaves, it would not be true to say that they were all unhappy. Everything depended on the master. His power over his coloured workers was the power over life and death. Some planters treated their slaves justly and well, and the negroes in their helplessness looked up to their master almost as if to a father. But not all the white masters were good and wise men. Some treated their slaves worse than animals.

Such a master was Giles Stacy, the owner of forty-five slaves and a small cotton plantation in Alabama.