Slavery and Racism in Early Americas

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Slavery and Racism in Early American History Freedom is flawed. Truthfully, total freedom is impossible to achieve in this world, since the chains that bind humans disable us from truly living freely. With the constant stresses of simply living or being confined to the laws of the land, our freedom is suppressed. Since every human being falls under being constrained, however, we should all share the burden equally. In past history, enslavement of another was usually the result of an unpaid debt, the spoils of a victorious war, or the consequences of a crime. Enslavement of another human life without reason, however, is a critical sign of the downfall of humanity. In American history, slavery warped from being temporary servitude of any immigrant or unemployed citizen in the hopes of helping them in the end into lifetime enslavement of Africans with no pay and very little hope of escaping the harsh conditions employed by enslavement. Not only did enslavement of the Africans occur, but the harsh racism that formed towards them only worsened their conditions, with the white society’s hate being expressed negatively towards the slaves. Since the time of slavery, many scholars and historians have studied the American enslavement of the Africans to further understand the cause. In Winthrop Jordan’s book The White Man’s Burden, he discusses the origins of racism in the United States and how it is connected to slavery, while David Stannard argues which of the two came first in his book American Holocaust. Also, through the words of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, examination of the political stance on slavery during that era is essential to understanding why enslavement of the Africans existed. The association of slavery and racism had been intertwined in many ways; however, the question is not only how slavery and racism relate, but it is also which one came
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