Seasoning Slaves Essay

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Seasoning Slaves What comes to mind when you hear the word seasoning? You’re probably thinking about your mama’s famous seasoned chicken; however, this is beyond that kind of seasoning. This process of seasoning doesn’t involve the foods that we eat. In fact, it involves actual human, most of which were African slaves. You might be baffled or rather disgusted by the idea of seasoning human beings as yourself, but you’ve gotten the wrong idea. This type of seasoning doesn’t involve cannibalism. It is actually a process that new coming slaves from West Africa undergo in order to become more profitable when sold to plantation owners in North America or other places. Slaves that were taken to the West Indies after having survived through the middle passage were placed into the three categories that were used to divide slaves: Creoles, old Africans, and new Africans. Creoles are African slaves who were born in the Americas while old Africans are slaves who had lived in the Americas for some time. In addition, new Africans are slaves who were fresh off the boat from West Africa. In other words, new comers. They were often called “salt-water Negroes” or “Guinea-birds” by the plantation owners and Creole slaves. Out of the three categories, Creoles were considered more valuable and favored. They were worth three times the value of new Africans who were considered unseasoned. Therefore, you can somewhat get an idea that seasoning is the process by which new Africans undergo to become more like Creoles. Seasoning often lasted for a period of two years or so. It was a disciplinary process consisting of brutal methods of physical and psychological conditioning. It’s so brutal that 7% to 50% of the slaves are estimated to have died within their one to seven years of the seasoning period. The whole point of the process is to better the behavior and attitude of slaves,
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