![]() The Emancipator, one of America’s first anti-slavery newspapers East Tennessee was a staging ground for the issue that would divide not only the state but the nation. Abolition is the desire to abolish or end slavery. By the 1820s, East Tennessee had become a center of abolitionism. The newspaper was originally called the Manumission Intelligencer, but the name was later changed to the Emancipator. In 1819, Elihu Embree established the first newspaper in the United States devoted entirely to freeing slaves at Jonesborough. Emancipation is an action taken by the government to free slaves. Some Tennesseans opposed the expansion of slavery, especially in East Tennessee where an emancipation movement developed. It became more difficult for owners to free their slaves, and free African Americans lost many rights. As slavery became more and more important to Tennessee’s economy, the laws changed. The 1796 Constitution also made it easy for owners to manumit, or free, their slaves. The 1796 Constitution had granted suffrage, or voting rights, and relative social equality to free African Americans. In addition to slaves, Tennessee had a fairly large population of free African Americans. Cotton on the stalk grown in the fertile Mississippi Valley lowland near Memphis List of slave births at Wessyngton Plantation, Robertson County By 1830, there were seven times as many slaves west of the Cumberland Plateau as in East Tennessee. As a result, slavery was more common in Middle and West Tennessee than mountainous East Tennessee. ![]() ![]() Cotton and tobacco grew well in the fertile soil of Middle and West Tennessee but required intensive labor, or work, to produce. More slaves were brought to the state following the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793. Most African Americans in Tennessee were slaves. By 1800, the African American population had jumped to 13,584 (12.8 percent), and by 1810, African Americans made up more than twenty percent of Tennessee’s people. The territorial census of 1791 showed an African American population of 3,417-ten percent of the general population. Slavery played a major role in Tennessee’s rapid expansion. From 1818 to 1826, the General Assembly met in Murfreesboro, and in 1826, the capital moved to its permanent site in Nashville. The capital was relocated back to Knoxville until 1812, moved to Nashville from 1812 to 1817, then returned briefly to Knoxville. The state capital was Knoxville from 1796 to September 1807, when the capital was Kingston for a day. This shift in population led to a shift in political power from the older region of East Tennessee to the middle section of the state. By 1810, Middle Tennessee had moved ahead of the eastern section in population. It grew 250 percent from the years 1800 to 1810, increasing from 85,000 to 250,000 during the first fourteen years of statehood alone. Between 17, the state’s population tripled. The availability of so much land, some of which was very fertile, caused Tennessee’s population to grow very rapidly. It also made it easier for travelers to reach the Cumberland Settlements. This was especially important because it gave the state control over all the land from the eastern counties to the Cumberland Settlements. The state gained much of the south-central region and most of the Cumberland Plateau. Between 17, the Cherokee and Chickasaw signed a number of treaties in which they ceded large areas of land. After 1806, the state began to sell public land for low prices, which attracted settlers from the East. ![]() The new state of Tennessee began to grow quickly once the threat of war with Native Americans declined. ![]()
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