They did not want any slaves counted in the population total because the slaves had no voice in government, they did not vote or have any rights. The North also
they cannot deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." -Thomas Jefferson These were the words written in the Declaration of Independence. However, this was not the case during the time of slavery. Even for the “freed” slaves. “Freed blacks” were generally not free at all.
The African Americans were not able to vote because the whites and the government disenfranchised the African Americans; until the 15th Amendment. The African Americans were considered illiterate to the Whites. The 15th amendment states that they could no longer discriminate based on race. Even though this amendment sounded like good news, the Whites still made literacy test and poll taxes that the African Americans had to do even before voting. The African Americans couldn’t run for office either, they still had Democrats and Republicans.
In areas such as South Carolina and Georgia, the master was not present on the plantation. Slaves were ran in a “task system” in which they were controlled by an overseer and were assigned a certain task, or tasks, to do in a day and once they successfully completed said task they were free to spend their time in their own manner. This system allowed for slaves to create their own environments and to keep many of their African traditions and culture alive because they were not being exposed to the New World that the masters lived
Washington was very astute in his dealings with the whites of the South. He had an innate ability to forgive them for treating blacks so cruelly and inhumanely. It was important to him to move forward and not dwell on the past. He was sure it was right to slowly assimilate black slaves to freedom rather than thrust it upon them all at once; perhaps he looked at his beliefs as way of allowing only the best of his race to succeed and find their own ways to freedom. Whatever his intent, this would have kept them enslaved to the whites of the South.
Just as blacks in the south, they wanted equal rights. However, there was one major difference: there were no laws in the north pertaining to the black community. There were no political figures to fight. In the south, civil rights protestors had a battle laid out for them: they had the Jim Crow laws to deem unjust; they had the numerous bombings directed toward important black icons to protest. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s “expose the evil” tactic worked so well in the south because so much of the evil was easily spotted.
They never did anything to them, they were just slaves because they were a different skin color. This continues all the way to the end of the film when slaves are again being transported, but in a truck. The way white people are portrayed throughout the film is also accurate for the time period. They think they are better than everyone else and that they have power over blacks. It is true that white people owned plantations and that they had slaves that would tend to the cotton as well as the house on the plantation.
Anything that was ordered they had to do unless they wanted to be punished. Today’s society is very different. Everyone is treated fairly and have equal rights no matter what race they may be. Basic necessities were not even given to the slaves back in that time. Things like education, food services, medical care, and our right to vote would still be foreign to us if slavery was still around.
Slaves they said weren’t a real citizen, they have no rights or freedom, they said they weren’t equals to them. So how could they say they treated them like they were family. One method of protest that a slave would use to survive was to just say “yes master” I will do that, but when the would do what they were told they would do it really slow. The slave owners couldn’t
Douglass begins his narrative with explaining that as a child he was unaware of how old he was and that as a slave, he was forbidden to ask. This was a major source of unhappiness for Douglass as a child, as all of the white boys around him knew their age. As this being the first thing that Douglass talks about, it is apparent that this lack of identity is going to be a big part of what Douglass focuses on. Douglass writes about how white slaveholders keep slavery alive by dehumanizing their slaves and keeping them ignorant. It also seems that ignorance is not only apparent in the slaves but in the slaveholders themselves.