According to Blair (54), nations that embraced slavery perished through violence or corruption of the society. Slavery dominated the whole aspect of life in St. Louis. The City was a center for slave auctions in the 1840s. It was situated in a border State which allowed slavery in an urban setting. Slaves were in constant contact because they were owned by individuals and businesses who could sometime find the need to rent skilled slaves for carpentry, printing, horse care, blacksmithing and the like, as most of them owned unskilled ones. As such, slaves in St. Louis and other border cities had regular contacts with other slaves and free Black people alike. This interaction heightened the issue for the abolition of slavery in this region.
People who Opposed Slavery in St. Louis
In this region, slavery still existed despite the presence of free blacks. However, even the free blacks were not free as they required to have licenses to live in the city and were not allowed to vote or testify against Whites in court. Professional Blacks were subjected to curfews, housing restrictions, and educational bans. There were varying political views on slavery as Whites came from different regions of the country. Some supported slavery while others despised it. Those who supported it encouraged the trade, owned slaves, killed Blacks and pushed for the ban on education for African-Americans in 1847. Others, on the other hand, pushed for its abolition due to the barbaric treatment that was being meted on slaves. Slaves themselves also sought ways to freedom through emancipation, running away, suing for freedom, insurrection or even death. Brown (42) supported emancipation as the best way to restore a State into its ascendant attitude. People ran campaigns to end slavery, and others even helped the fugitive slaves to run away to freedom. People like Elijah Lovejoy and Frances Dana Gage were abolitionists who suffered the consequences of their antislavery views. Others included Attorney Roswell Field, John Berry Meachum among other abolitionists.
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Ways to End Slavery
Elijah Lovejoy was an editor of the St. Louis Observer and wanted to abolish slavery through running antislavery editorials. Whites from the South were not happy about his articles and within two years, threatened the paper’s office. Several break-ins were made in the office, and eventually, a pro-slavery mob killed Lovejoy. Frances Dana Gage also fought for antislavery through editorials but prominent papers refused to published her articles, and her home got burnt several times. John Berry Meachum was a former slave and attempted to push for the abolition of slavery by starting African-American schools but later closed due to pressure from the local authorities claiming that it was not proper for Blacks to learn reading, writing and figuring as this would stir up trouble. More schools for the African-Americans cropped up in the 1940s but were later closed down in 1846 following opposition from the civil authorities. People like Attorney Roswell Field attempted its abolition through the legal system. He collaborated with other lawyers during 1840s to help free Dred Scott. The church approached the subject cautiously as demonstrated by Eliot (48), explaining that it was not an abolitionist.
Conclusion
Slavery in St. Louis was a normal aspect of life in the 1940s. Because of the ill-treatment that slaves went through in the hands of their masters and the general population, some people opposed its institutions and attempted ways to end it. Several of them opposed it with others using the media to campaign against it while others tried to use the legal channel to end it. Blacks were considered to be inferior to the White race by some people, thus justifying slavery. As Lane (51) put it, slaves could not be entrusted with more liberty than they could safely have for their good.
