Abraham Lincoln

[Abraham Lincoln][Companies with slavery today][Companies against slavery today][Similarities of back then and now] [African American Abolitionists]

After President Abraham Lincoln declared war against southern owners, slaves wanted to go to the north to fight for their freedom. So a route was build called the Drinking Gourd. At night, slaves would run away and go to the north by the Drinking Gourd. There was only one problem: the slaves who knew about this could have gone, but slaves could not communicate with each other. So they made a song that spread across the United States. The song said for the slaves to follow the drinking gourd, where an old man would be waiting to take them to the north. Lincoln started the Civil War to stop slavery in 1961-1965. This war determined what kind of nation it would be. It was one of the most violent times in the history of the United States. More than 625,000 men gave their lives fighting for their country in this war. Black slaves from the south went to the north to fight with the soldiers against southern owners. Not only Lincoln wanted this; a lot of other people did too. Actually, they wanted to stop slavery so badly that they paid tons of money to stop slavery. Even though the North won, after president Lincoln died, some slaves were brought back to the United States. Some states still have serfs. However, ninety percent of the United States is serf free. Lincoln freed an estimate of four billion enslaved families. This joining of black slaves and abolitionists back in 1961-1965 helped bridge cultural gaps. When the Arabians captured Chinese slaves and forced them to reveal their paper making secrets, it joined the cultural gaps between the Chinese and the Arabians. In Europe, cultural gaps diminished when they bought African slaves. In Africa, they were conquered by so many people and were exported so much that they started to believe and changed their culture as well. Although slavery is not strong today, it made Americans, African-Americans, and other ethnic groups aware of what slavery can do, and help each other by joining together if any kind of slavery rises again.