Why did it take so long for USA to abolish slavery and why didnt they do it when they become independent?
It was something already frowned upon on Europe and it was the time when they started to abolished all over Europe and America, hell, it was one of the first thing the Spanish colonies did when they became independent.
I guess we could also ask why it took so long for Brazil.
>>415459
What other country apart from the USA and Brazil had such a big region with an economy based on slavery? And at the same time was big and distant enough to resist external pressure to follow the abolitionist trend from (for example) the British Empire?
>>415468
Dominican Republic is the biggest I can think of, and I can guess the whole West Indies, but then again it is part of UK.
>>415459
Brazil didn't abolish slavery in 1871 precisely because they were afraid of a civil war breaking out after having watched what happened in the U.S.
Instead they agreed on a very slow process of abolition, involving laws that freed any new-born and old-aged slaves.
"External pressure" was a joke. Britain and France "frowned on it" because they were still able to benefit from it economically (cheaper imports of cotton etc.) which making a show of washing their hands of it. Slavery caught on and lasted where it worked for the ruling classes as an economic and legal model.
>>415459
This is something American histories tend to shy away from, but the American revolution was mostly about slave owners defending their property. It was in conjuction with other causes like British limitation of westward expansion and taxation, but the real untold story is the role of slave holders protecting their property was as a reason for the revolution.
Just look at the main players in the revolution- they were all slave owners, who professed that all men are equal under the law whilst owning other people.
This is one of the reasons why it took so long for the USA to abolish slavery, it was linked to the elite landowning Northern families revenue. Only when the North industrialized did abolish become an option, before then it would have hurt to many powerful people.
>>415515
>Just look at the main players in the revolution- they were all slave owners, who professed that all men are equal under the law whilst owning other people.
I mean, I guess that depends on who you consider a main player. Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams at least were exceptions.
>>415515
This could be the largest part of it - that this country was founded a slave-owning country - but I wouldn't discount the role played by many prominent slaveless northerners in the revolution. Lexington and Concord are in Massachusetts, after all.
>>415515
Except that basically none of the northern leaders owned slaves or endorsed slavery, poor farmers were huge supporters of independence. Also, anyone who was anyone in the South had slaves at that time, regardless of their politics.
Sounds like you had a shitty excuse for an education, m9.
>>415459
Because their economy in the south was driven by it, as we saw post civil a the south collapsed after they lost a way to make money
>>415515
>implying Loyalists weren't on average the largest slaveowners in the colonies
Shit argument, mate.
>>415459
>Why did it take so long for the U.S. to abolish slavery
Southern resistance.
>Why didnt they do it when they became independent.
Because the Southern economy depended on slavery
>It was something already frowned upon in Europe
They just called them "Indentured laborers" instead.
