05 February 2012 How Douglass’s Narrative defines Slavery as Robbery. Slavery is usually defined as the bondage of a person without his or her consent as the property of another person. Robbery, on the other hand, can be defined as the act of taking personal property from someone without their consent by the use of force. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass deftly intertwines the two topics in such a way to clearly illustrate his position about slavery and robbery. Douglass defines slavery as robbery in several parts of his Narrative.
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).
Two of the three have their similarities and their differences, slavery and caste. (Henslin, 2010) Slavery is a form of social stratification that allows people to own other people. (Henslin, 2010) Those who own the property use humans for the benefit of themselves. Slavery is the most common form of social stratification, for slavery dates back to the early age B.C and involves the Israelites, Greeks, Romans and Africans-- were shipped to the United States in 1619 by British Colonies, and still exists in Africa, Asia and South America today. Three factors lead to slavery; debt, crime and war.
The need for worshipping abstract, “almighty” entities is common to the majority of cultures, even if in very different ways. Religion was - and still is – one of the crucial points in the construction of any society and it wasn’t any different in helping the construction of the slaveholding society in America. In the seventeenth century, when the British implemented the slaveholding culture in America, thousands of slaves were brought from African countries in order to facilitate the work of the settlers. With them, they brought a series of customs, including their religious practices. Those rituals were completely different from the ones of Christian slaveholders, like shamanism and other tribal cults.
They were denied things such as, education, freedom of speech and even there right to live. This was accomplished through acts such as “segregation” and “”. Efforts such as the civil rights movement and the bus boycotts contributed to African Americans obtaining equality. One way that African Americans have been denied there rights and ”life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is through slavery. They were captured and forced to work under harsh conditions.
Slavery. A term African Americans know all too well. Africans brought out of Africa and to other continents, only to be whipped and battered. They were treated like rag dolls, getting housed around in chains. Obviously, this isn’t the type of life anyone wants to live.
African-Americans should be able to use the word “nigger”, because it is a term of endearment we use between ourselves. The root word is a racial slur once used to stigmatize blacks. The word started around the time of slavery, a period where whites owned blacks. They saw us colored people as less than man, and therefore used us to work for free doing things they did not want to do. The word “nigger” has accompanied many beatings, arsons, killings, and other attacks against African-Americans.
But this does not mean that slavery was God's original intention. The Law of Moses was given to fallen man. Some of the ordinances deal with things not intended for the original creation order, such as slavery and divorce. These will be eliminated completely only when sin is eliminated from the earth. The slave codes are reflective of the sinfulness of mankind.
These codes prohibited slaves from owning weapons, receiving an education, and testifying against white people in court. Slave codes robbed the Africans of their freedom and will power. While slaves did resist this treatment, strict and cruel punishment would be the consequence for disobeying their masters. The slaves could be killed for breaking the slave codes. Under the plantation system gang labor was the typical form of employment.
Slavery in America should be considered genocide because it systematically broke down the social, political and economic structure of African Americans. The first step in distinguishing genocide is differentiating the oppressed and the oppressor. That is dividing it