and of course are and ought to be slaves to the American people and their children forever“ ( Walker 792). He uses this tone to depict just how silly the notion of slavery is when he says these things that are blatantly not right. Walker seems to use this method of speaking throughout his writing to get his point across. Walker compares the American way of slavery to the way it was under the Romans and comes to a very interesting point. “The world knows, that slavery as it existed among the Romans was, comparatively speaking, no more than a cypher, when compared with ours under the Americans” he stated (Walker 792).
“If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master- to do as he is told to do. Learning will spoil the best nigger in the world. Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there will be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave.
One story that goes in depth about these things is about a slave who worked his way up towards a house-slave. These slaves got to stay in the house, and more often than not, these slaves would be REALLY hated by the other slaves. Anyway, this slave, even though a house slave didn't just betray his fellow slaves to the master. This slave self-taught himself to read so that whenever the master and another helper were talking, he could understand them. You see, whenever the master and someone else were speaking, and they didn't want the house slave to know, they would spell out whatever they're trying to say.
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.
And his personal life was also very contradictory. He spoke and acted for the liberty of man, but at the time he thought that liberty was in fact for a small minority of the people, blacks were not included, in fact, and he owned slaves. But his Declaration of Independence, and his other ideas and writings about the rights of states and individuals freedom helped to shape the world as we know it today. Thomas Jefferson’s contradictions are part of our society and are still affecting us today. Additionally, it’s important to study about Jefferson, because this can help us to resolve our problems in society and learn from the past.
Slavery victimized the slaves themselves, the slave holders, and the non slave holding whites. Slaves were number one in victimization. The Slaves worked long hard days for no money at all. Slaves hardly ever had any free time most of their lives were devoted to their masters. The slaves had little to no values, they had no family.
The desire of being free resembled the awful conditions that some of them had. Nevertheless, numbers of slaves claimed that they would want to go back in time and visit their owners since they treated them well enough. A variety of slaves experienced various types of slavery and each of the stories represented unique lifestyles that each of them had. The slaves had not only described their working conditions, but as well as the Majority of the slaves suffered during the times they were enslaved while the rest had a fairly good time. The slaves that were being interviewed had various answers about whether or not they had hard times back then.
Much of the plantation and slave owner’s power came from the slave’s dependence on the owner for survival. Education was seen as a way to establish an independence; thus weakening the slave owner’s control. Several laws were passed in the Deep South, which forbid slaves to learn to read and write as well as making it illegal for any persons, white or black, to educate slaves. In 1740,
Revelation! Slavery was a big part of the United States around the 1830’s. The whites and slave owners were very cruel to the African Americans. The made them go through long hours of tenuous work with little food and sleep. If the African Americans didn’t obey or perform to the expectations of the slave owners they were viciously beaten.
Solomon faced a big contrast with his previous life; he suffered slave diet hunger, lived in a cabin with a dirty floor, had poor clothes as well as restrictions to his freedom and was beaten and physically punished. Eventually he regained his freedom