My first example on how deleting our humane feelings caused harm is Document 7 by James Ramsay called, “Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies”. The article speaks about the punishments done to slaves for misbehaving in their eyes and committing mistakes. The white men would beat them with sticks, breaking their bones, chain around their necks, etc. All this was done to cause fear within them. All these people thought since Africans are slaves, it’s okay to treat them as beasts.
He was particularly not very fond of Thomas Jefferson, who he thought to be a racist. In his “Appeal in Four Articles” we can detect the tone and seriousness in his voice right away. This is obviously not a topic he takes lightly. He blasts the institution of slavery right away when he says, “But we, (coloured people) and our children are brutes!! and of course are and ought to be slaves to the American people and their children forever“ ( Walker 792).
To Be A Slave This book was a little but more unique than the other books that people are reading. There is no set character, place or setting. All the stories are broken up into different categories like, "The Auction Block" chapter where the stories that are gathered are about the slaves and how they were sold and taken away from their family. The places where most of the stories occur are in the south, places like Texas, Louisiana and Virginia. I think the plot or lesson that the stories are trying to get across is that slavery was an extremely horrible thing.
I do not like to get reminded of how dark and terrible slaves spent their pure life suffering by their cruel punishments like whipping or getting killed to stop the problem right away. Masters were so cruel. I do not understand what kind of heart God had them at birth. I wonder what thoughts masters had in mind during a torture of slaves. It was money and power that took over their minds.
They basically had no status whatsoever when it came to a place in this world. I also believe that Slavery was very close to becoming a part of what would be known as genocide. I believe that if the whites could have made every black person a slave they would have, and I believe that they would all have died from diseases, committing suicide, bleeding out to death, beating them to death, killing them because they disobeyed. I think what was stopping them was that in some places it was illegal. I am sure some people thank God for that because slavery very well could have taken over the world.
His plan resulted in complete failure when very few had joined him. He, along with his few followers, was persecuted later, guilty of treason from the state of Virginia. While in jail, John Brown gained a large amount of support and praise for his courage and even impressed moderate Northerners who were anti-slavery. By many, his hanging disturbed and had made many upset, and thus was honored as a saint or a martyr of abolition. Although revered for his efforts and courage in the North, the South typically viewed John Brown as lawless murderer and condemned him.
History Slavery in itself can be a broad subject, but broken down slavery is any of a number of related conditions involving control of a person against his or her will, enforced by violence or other clear forms of coercion. So basically holding someone against there will by any means to get some form of labor or benefits out of it is a form of slavery. My eyes were opened to all different kinds of slavery once I started taking this class. For the most part I was amazed at the number of people who are enslaved in America. My mind as far as slavery goes was so small that when slavery was spoken of I thought about that in which my African ancestors endured.
Why were the fugitive slave laws strengthened in the 1850’s and how did they differ from the past? In the 1850’s the upper south states were losing a lot of their slaves because an increasing amount of them continued to run away. States such as Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky had this so called “frustrating issue.” Leading to the fugitive slave laws from the year 1793 to be strengthened. The laws of 1793 gave slave owners to go out and get their slaves that had ran away to other states. Escaped slaves had no rights, this included no right to a trial, no right to testify, and no guarantee of the legal requirement that a person brought before a court and not imprisoned illegally.
I believe Frederick Douglass is a Transcendentalist because in his narrative he gives examples of poor treatment from most of his enslavers, showing that the meanness that was exhibited towards slaves was the norm, and slave-owners who were kind were the exception. He uses this narrative to show even more evil underside of slavery. He writes to educate white audiences about what really goes on at slave plantations, including more cruel and depraved behaviors. For example, he devotes several paragraphs in Chapter I to a discussion about white slave owners impregnating their slaves. Douglass often returns to the same theme, depicting slavery as dehumanizing to both slaveholders and slaves.
One example of this is Corp D’Afrique regime which started out as a confederacy black regime. Another all Black troop was the 54th Massachusetts, who with the help of Frederick Douglass, attracted free Black men. So many African American men were attracted to the 54th regime, that the 55th regime was organized. Unfortunately, most of these Blacks did not serve in combat and were ill-equipped which lead to massive loss. Blacks had to fight under the threat of death with little to no arms and under threat of execution by Confederates would begin to treat prisoners of war as rebellious slave and order their massacre.