Why did the Atlantic slave trade start?
Soon into the 1800s, the friction between the free northern US states, and the slave states of the south, grew larger, into a massive political, cultural and economic struggle. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska act created the territories that these states were named after; this act stated that it was up to the inhabitants to decide whether to be admitted to the Union as slave states or free states. Shortly after this, armed conflict over the issue broke out in Kansas Territory. This eventually led to a brutal civil war between the southern slave states and the northern free states, during which Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, consisting of two executive orders, one in 1862, and another in 1863, which freed most slaves, but it was not until the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on December 18 1865, eight months after Lincoln’s assassination, that slavery was finally ended throughout the US.
