Footsteps to You: Chattel Slavery

Chattel slavery is a form of bondage in which people are considered and treated as chattel, or personal property that is moveable. Enslaved people in America were considered to be commodities - property that could be purchased, sold, disposed of, and transferred.

Slave owners were taxed for their slaves just as they were taxed for their horses, real estate, and other property. Enslaved people were often branded with their owner’s initials, just as people would brand their livestock. Owners gave their slaves to their children upon their deaths, and children of enslaved people were also considered property upon their birth.

Prior to the Civil War, the United States Constitution mandated that each individual slave was considered three-fifths of a person. Known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, this rule was added to the Constitution so that enslaved people, who made up a third of the Southern population by the 19th century, could be considered for taxation purposes and population count when deciding a state’s representation in Congress. To most Americans, slaves still were not people at all.

Abolitionism, or the movement to end slavery, had its roots in early colonial America, but while public protests against slavery occurred as early as the late 1600s, the movement did not flourish until the 1830s. Abolitionists believed that slavery contradicted the principles of freedom and equality that the United States was founded on, and the movement had a large religious base that saw slavery as a sin. While the abolitionist movement was strong, at any given time it was made up of only about 3,000 supporters—including free people of color, white abolitionists, and other allies.

 Early anti-slavery laws were slow to take effect. By 1804, all northern states had abolished slavery, but the emancipation (freeing) of enslaved people was gradual. Likewise, in 1808, Thomas Jefferson signed a law which outlawed the transportation of enslaved Africans into the country, but enslaved people already in the country and children born to those enslaved people remained in bondage. In 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded and energized the abolitionist movement, prompting more discussions about slavery and deepening the divide between the North and the South.

 Between the 1830s and 1850s and at the peak of the abolitionist movement, abolitionists used the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses, to help enslaved people escape to freedom in free states and Canada. It is estimated that about 1,000 enslaved people per year followed the Underground Railroad to their freedom. This affected southern slave holders so deeply that they convinced Congress to pass the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 which prohibited assistance to fugitive slaves.

 Abolitionists continued to fight for the end of slavery throughout the 1850s, eventually leading to the succession of many southern states and the American Civil War, a violent confrontation between the pro-slavery Confederacy and the anti-slavery Union.

“If you hold your hand closed, Gladys nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed for it gives in abundance, even as it receives.” – Saying of Biddy Mason, passed on to her great –granddaughter, Gladys Owens Smith

Although slavery was illegal in California, the status of enslaved people entering the state was often unclear. This led to many court cases between enslaved people and slave owners. One of the most famous of these cases involved an enslaved woman named Biddy Mason.

Biddy was born into slavery in Georgia, sold to a Mississippi slave owner when she was a toddler, and given at the age of 17 as a wedding present to Robert Smith. In 1848, Smith moved his family and slaves from Mississippi to Utah. In 1851, the group moved again to California and settled in San Bernardino, then a newly established Mormon community.

Five years after arriving in California, Smith tried to smuggle Biddy, her daughters, and his other slaves to Texas. Knowing Texas was a slave state, Biddy petitioned a Los Angeles court for her freedom. Although California law did not allow Biddy to speak for herself in court, Judge Benjamin Hayes invited her to speak privately in his chambers. After hearing her testimony, Judge Hayes ruled that Biddy, her three children, and Smith’s other slaves were free.

 Hayes later helped Biddy secure a job as a nurse and midwife. Over the next thirty years, Biddy invested in real estate (becoming the first black woman to own property in Los Angeles), founded the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, and created the first school for black children in Los Angeles. Over her life Biddy accumulated a fortune estimated at $300,000 which today would make her a multimillionaire.