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).
That is why he wanted the slaves to be freed and removed from the United States all together. He feared of a revolt by them for all the cruel things that were done to them. Thomas Jefferson didn’t hold the views he felt for one group for the other. The African Americans who were brought to America to be slaves that they forced to live how they wanted them to could not coexist with them but the Native Americans who had their own society and their own way of life they could be civil with. I thought that they wanted to preserve the republican society by molding republican machines.
I think the plot or lesson that the stories are trying to get across is that slavery was an extremely horrible thing. We are very lucky that slavery isn't around as much as it used to because all people are created equally, and everyone has their own rights. The part of the book that I found interesting was a story about a man after the Emancipation Proclamation was passed. Just for your information, the Emancipation Proclamation was a document that stated that
Douglass’s Narrative really displayed how white slaveholders kept slavery by keeping their slaves ignorant. At the time Douglass was writing,
Douglass begins his narrative with explaining that as a child he was unaware of how old he was and that as a slave, he was forbidden to ask. This was a major source of unhappiness for Douglass as a child, as all of the white boys around him knew their age. As this being the first thing that Douglass talks about, it is apparent that this lack of identity is going to be a big part of what Douglass focuses on. Douglass writes about how white slaveholders keep slavery alive by dehumanizing their slaves and keeping them ignorant. It also seems that ignorance is not only apparent in the slaves but in the slaveholders themselves.
To see any negative view of the slave-trade, the reader must turn to the perspective of Oroonoko. Through him the reader sees how horrible the treatment of slaves is and how inhuman the slave-trade is. It might escape me, but I do not recall any moment in the story where the narrator takes its upon herself to discuss the slave trade. It seems that in that way that she is disconnecting herself from any responsibility. One could immediately say that this is because of her position at the time.
(Kolchin 14) This quote shows that it is believed that the color of skin served as a basis for who they were as a person during this time period. The African slaves were seen as savage and wild beasts that were only tamable through slavery. The racial distinction is what kept slavery alive because the slaves were not seen as humans and therefore deserved little to no humanity. Kolchin then goes on to describe the relationship between the masters and slaves and how these relationships varied depending upon the region. In areas such as South Carolina and Georgia, the master was not present on the plantation.
Hope felt that no black citizens should be left with less than any white citizens when it came to their rights as free individuals of the United States. He starts his critique of The Atlanta Compromise with, “If we are not striving for equality, in heaven’s name for what are we living?” He immediately makes it clear that separate and not equal is no different than being the slaves they were before they were given their freedom. Mr. Washington’s reply would have been simple; we need to take smaller steps to avoid hatred, anger, and the likely death of our people in the South. He would have told Hope that having small freedoms, earning others, and making a wage while doing so was the path of least resistance. Mr. Hope would have adamantly disagreed with this
Unlike the Native Americans, they were viewed more as a tool rather than an individual since the beginning of the African slave trade. Their lives were devastated as families were split apart and their freedom was stripped away from them. Those who were enslaved soon used freedom petitions to rally to the cause of abolishing slavery, one in which revealed how they had “with other men a natural and unalienable right to that freedom which the great parent of the universe hath bestowed equally on all mankind” as they argued that it was unjust to judge people by their appearance. They believed, like white women, that every individual was given such rights as a human being as well. They believed that they were fellow brothers, but were instead ignored and harassed by white men for their own benefit.
I have a feeling that most slave lives were mainly the same, except for when the slave masters had different races; this was rarely. I have previously read other slave books, and I really do not like reading and picturing descriptions on how slaves were treated and used. I get chills. I really feel bad for slaves, because they really did not have a choice in becoming a slave or not. If the person was told to be a slave, that person had to be a slave no matter what.