In My Bondage and My Freedom, Fredrick Douglass argues that slavery had affected everyone. “Slavery was a brutal experience, from the initial capture in Africa, to the Middle Passage, to a degrading life of labor in America.” (Yazawa, 59) The slaves had it worst during slavery because they were the central part of it. They had their human rights taken away, they were worked until there was nothing left of them, and they were severely abused. Slaves had become a fixture that had no decisions, no ambition, and no purpose. (Douglass, 129) The slave system had mistreated the slaves in variety of ways.
The blacks were treated in an inhumane style, receiving violent beating and extreme manual labour for many hours of the day, minimum amounts of food and poor living conditions. In 1861, the war against Slavery in America began. After 4 years of fighting between the Northern and Southern States of America that left of 600,000 dead, the Northern states had defeated the Southern states that had been fighting for slavery and their own secession. After becoming victorious, the Northern states and the President declared slavery to be abolished in America. However, even after its abolishment, blacks were still kept in slavery and were treated poorly and unequal to other, white Americans.
This meant that Douglass was on his own to educate himself. However, with these words Douglass finally saw his “pathway from slavery to freedom” (29). Learning suddenly became a way towards freedom because it would give him a sense of right and wrong. He learns the evils of slavery and understands that he doesn’t have to live this way. Douglass now knew the steps he must take in order to become a man of society, not a man of slavery.
It was very hard to look at and see all the cruelty and things that went on with the slaves after they had been captured, due to the fact they had been minding their own business a significant amount of years and then someone comes along, suggest that Africans are not to be treated inhuman and turned into a slave. Finally once had reached to their destination, slaves would be auctioned off. I learned from this movie that slaves fought back. They realized what was going on with their lives and took control of that. I was not aware that they actually went to court and was faced with murder, didn’t know that this happened.
The word humanity has more than one meaning. Humanity can mean the human race, and it can also mean humanness or benevolence. During the time of slavery, it was thought to the slaves that they were inhuman and didn’t have any rights. The white masters burned it into Frederick and his fellow slaves that they weren’t equal. The enslaved weren’t allowed to know their name or even their own family.
The author offered an impression of native’s natural and simple life just like any human kind’s ancestors would have had. In doing so, Equiano argues against slavery as an affront to all humans: "Let the polished and haughty European recollect that his ancestors were once, like the Africans, uncivilized, and even barbarous. Did Nature make them inferior to their sons? and should they too have been made slaves? Every rational mind answers, No" (p43).
The Africans, meanwhile, were also enslaved, first by their own people, then by the Arabs, then by the Europeans. The slavery of African people in the last millennium was one of, if not the greatest tragedies in human history. It is also known as the African diaspora. (Diaspora literally means “A removal of a people from their original homeland”.) Thousands of people died and it started racial tension that still exists today.
In the auction scene slave families were ripped apart from each other. To be sold to different slave holders; Many slave family’s never saw each other again once they were separated. In conclusion I believe that the movie Uncle Tom’s Cabin portrayed most slave holders as ruthless killers, but it also portrayed some slave holders as decent
Locke argues that all men are of the same species making them all equal and placed on the same rank. He uses this to justify why all human beings deserve to participate in government and not be ruled blindly by an absolute monarch. During this time kings were viewed as superior to other human beings; Locke argues that since we all are of the same species that their is no “superior” human being. This point then helps Locke explain why all humans deserve to take part in how they are governed. Along with his ideas of human equality and the elimination of social hierarchy, Locke also advocated man's natural right to freedom.
Lincoln ensured that all people including the black and white people, are created equally. He also criticized that people fought the Civil War just to take control of slavery. This idea went against the law of nature, which says that all people are equal. Lincoln pointed out that slavery which would be fixed by the Civil War, was one the biggest mistakes that Americans have. Besides, the quote “now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can