USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

[SOURCES]
How many slaves were immediately freed by the Emancipation Proclamation?

(A) No slaves were immediately freed.

(B) About 2, 000

(C) ** About 20, 000

(D) About 200, 000

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -The Proclamation changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free.

Concept note-2: -With the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, nearly 4 million slaves were free people by the end of the war, more than 360, 000 of them in North Carolina. Despite their lack of schooling, these African Americans demonstrated a clear vision of what they wanted and a strong determination to get it.

Concept note-3: -That was the situation in the country on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation-a long name for a long document (it went on for five pages!). You might have heard that it freed all slaves, but that isn’t true. Only a small number of the country’s 4 million slaves were freed immediately.

Concept note-4: -Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free a single slave, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of African Americans, and fundamentally transformed the character of the war from a war for the Union into a war for freedom.

Concept note-5: -President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, announcing, “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious areas “are, and henceforward shall be free."