Slavery and Silence is an exceptional history that rethinks American slavery

within a hemispheric framework, accounting for the ways that Americans thought of
themselves in relation to other people and places south of the Rio Grande. A significant
starting point for slavery in America was in 1619, when The White Lion brought 20 African
slaves ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. Its crew had captured the Africans
from the Portuguese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista. In the thirty-five years before the Civil War,
it was increasingly difficult for Americans outside of politics to discuss openly and honestly
about the institutions of slavery, because divisive sectionalism and heated ideological
rhetoric limited public debate. Talking about slavery means exploring - or denying - its real
flaws, its inhumanity, its contradictions. To celebrate it requires an explanation of the
nation's proclaimed belief in equality and its public promise of the right to all, while
condemning it is insulting to people who may be linked to blood ties, friendship or business,
and perhaps even threaten the nation's economic and political stability.For this reason, Paul
D. Naish argues, Americans shift their most provocative criticism and darkest fears about the
institution to Latin America. Naish supports this seemingly counterintuitive argument with
an interesting focus on the realm of public expression that has drawn little attention in
previous research of this era. In novels, diaries, correspondence, and scholarly writing, he
argues, the heat and excitement of the political arena is muted, and discussions of slavery
staged in these places often turn their attention south of the Rio Grande. So familiar and
foreign, Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, and the independent American republics of Spain provide a
rhetorical landscape of what everyday citizens can talk about, whether through direct
comparisons or implicit metaphors, what one might not be able to do when it comes to
slavery in home. At a time of ominous division, Americans of many faiths - North and South,
Whigs and Democrats, secure scholars in their libraries and vulnerable settlers on the
Mexican border - found unity in belittling Latin America. This shift in anxiety helps to create
a feeling of shallow nationalism as the state moves toward the most violent, politically
charged and consequential split. In the 13th Amendment, which finally formally abolished
slavery in the United States, the Senate passed on April 8, 1864, and the House of
Representatives on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln
approved a Joint Resolution of Congress that submitted proposing amendments to the state
legislature. The number required by states that ratify it before December 6, 1865. The 13th
Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "Neither slavery nor forced
servitude, except as a punishment for a crime for which the party must be punished, must
reside in the United States, state, or premises. whichever is subject to their jurisdiction." In
my opinion in this story, we should be able to teach us about ourselves. I say that because
although this story is the problem in teaching slavery, there is an even bigger problem not
teaching slavery. And some teachers let their worries about teaching a subject keep them
from giving bondage the attention it deserves. What's more, it's bad history. In fact slavery,
which caused and underlies this rift, is the single most pervasive problem in our past.