Abolitionism, War, Emancipation

Abolitionism, War, Emancipation. . , In 1783 the first notable attempt to raise awareness of the anti-slavery movement in Kentucky was organized by a Presbyterian minister named David Rice. In 1833, Kentucky passed a law that prohibited the importation of slaves, however, due to the law being financially constrictive to cash crop farming in the fertile central and southern Kentucky regions, it was later overturned in 1849. That same year, a state constitutional convention was held to debate the gradual emancipation of slaves in Kentucky. However, the anti-slavery political faction underestimated the amount of pro-slavery supporters that were determined to strengthen slave owner's abilities to buy, sell, and hold slaves. In 1852, the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe made its debut. The novel focused on the plight of a Kentucky slave sold away from his family to a plantation in the Deep South. In 1853, American composer Stephen Foster's song, My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night! Was published. The song possesses a similar narrative to Stowe's novel of a Kentucky slave sold to a sugar plantation in the Deep South. In 1855, Abolitionist Frederick Douglass commented that My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night!...awakens sympathies for the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root, grow, and flourish." Stowe's novel persuaded millions of Americans to join the abolitionist movement. Tensions in regards to slavery in America continued to escalate, leading to the American Civil War. During the war, over 100,000 Kentuckians fought to abolish slavery and preserve the Union while an estimated 40,000 fought for the Confederacy. Enslaved men who fought for union forces were granted their freedom. Slavery in Kentucky didn't officially come to an end until the 13th Amendment was added to the United States constitution on December 56th, 1865. , John Rowan Jr., the Anti-Slavery Faction, and Federal Hill, John Rowan Jr. married Rebecca Briscoe Carnes of Baltimore, Maryland. The couple lived in Mississippi during the early 1830s where John operated a plantation. After the death of John Jr.'s brother William Rowan in 1833 due to the cholera epidemic that killed 8 family members and many slaves, John Jr. returned home to manage Federal Hill and to enter Kentucky politics. John Rowan Sr. died in 1843, leaving Federal Hill, an enslaved family (Andrew, Jenny, and their daughter Mary Ellen), furnishings, and livestock in trust to John Rowan Jr. who had occupied the farm since returning from Mississippi in 1833. John Jr. personally owned seven enslaved people in 1840. By 1845, no slaves appear in tax or census records for John Jr.'s estate, and in 1847, John Jr. asserted himself as a member of the anti-slavery faction. Due to his inheritance being held in a trust, John Rowan Jr. had no financial authority over the Federal Hill property and its assets, not over Andrew, Jenny, and Mary Ellen. Jenny was the last enslaved person to live at Federal Hill, where she died in 1862., Freed Slaves, To date, no records have been found to indicate that the Rowans emancipated (freed) any of their slaves. Emancipation was legal in Kentucky and by law, the bonds of slavery could only be abolished by the consent of the slave's owner or by compensated emancipation wherein the owner of a slave could be paid to release ownership.