This lead up to how both stories of Douglass and Equiano show how and what make slavery brutal cruelty, but overall Douglass’s story and experience is more strong and easier to understand, while Equiano’s story appear weak and harder to understand. Douglass was being born into slavery and work as slave in the South. Master Thomas, Douglass’ slave master, rented Douglass out to work for Mr. Covey in a year. He had been
2B: Frederick was legally a slave because he was not only born to a slave woman, but also because he was mixed. The fact that he was half black and half white. (43) 3. A.1. Though they lived in different places, what contact did Frederick have with his mother?
Slavery: “The Peculiar Institution” Slaves were brought to the colonies first as indentured servants then slave traders started capturing slaves from Africa and bring them to the Caribbean. The colonist found slave labor cheap compared to indentured slaves who eventually ended their service. Slavery began in the United States about the 1630’s. During this time the colonial courts and legislatures made Africans property and enslaved to their masters for a life time. The legislature also ruled that slave status would be inherited by their children.
The reason that the African slaves were needed was because they were strong and good workers. The colonist had used the natives originally but they did not work as hard as they would have liked. The natives also had contracted small pox which took an enormous toll on them limiting the amount of slaves they had for labor. So they began trading and purchasing African slaves due to the fact that they had developed some immunity to these diseases. (McKay, Chap 21, pg 570) In order to get a good perspective on what being a slave was like, we will look into a narrative written by Olaudah Equiano.
One of things that were mentioned is “the heartless and ghastly form of slavery rises between mother and child.” Pg 45 Slaves were separated since the moment they were born, they did not get be around their parents and bond as other kids do. “The bondwoman lives as a slave, and is left to die as a beast.” “By the laws of slavery, children, in all cases are reduced to the condition of their mothers.” Pg 46 “This arrangement admits of the greatest license of brutal slaveholders , and their profligate sons, brothers, relations and friends, and gives pleasure of sin, the additional attraction of profit” pg46 It seems like they were dead to all sense of humanity the slaves were fighting for survival that was impossible. They were suffering from immoral economic advantages due to the slave owners and that caused the entire community to suffer by accepting what others believed was right. Everyone was victimized due to their human life and dignity it damaged society spiritually and morally. It made some slave holders and their overseers brutal, it made other white people feel guilty and ashamed.
FRQ for Three World Collide (Chapter 1-3) What role did unfree labor play in colonial American society? Unfree labor systems have been around in America since the early 1600’s and can still be seen today. The first form of slavery started with the arrival of indentured servants, where people bound themselves to masters in return for passage to America, many of whom wanted to escape their turbulent homeland. Eventually, this turned into the slavery as we have come to know it- African Americans doing backbreaking work for little or no money. While many disregard this system as cruel and unfair, in reality it helped to shape America as it is today.
It has been made clear that not all slaves were severely oppressed, but most were. The Primary sources support the claims of the cruelty and oppression that the slaves faced, but not all slaves faced the same fate as read in Faust’s essay. Charity Bowey, a slave who was interviewed, mentioned the leniency of her slave master who would turn away overseers who used to whip the slaves, but she also mentioned the cruelty that was reigned upon her by the mistress of the estate. She worked extensively to generate money to buy her children, but eventually the mistress sold her children and herself to speculators despite her best efforts and the 200 dollars she had earned. Most slaves did face harsh times, but there were exceptions, and the slaves of the Silver Bluff Plantation belong to the latter
There were also indentured servants who pledged their servitude for seven years. These slaves and indentured servants were treated very poorly and were looked upon as beneath the common people. In 1624 the Dutch West India Trading Company set up a fur trade. The slaves that were brought to the new settlements were property of the trading company. These slaves were Atlantic Creoles, a mixture of African and European peoples.
2. Black Slave holders were significant in the history of slavery because slaves saw the slaveholder’s as kind of a sell out. But in all reality the slaveholders were actually protecting families and other African Americans from being sold. Black slave holders would purchase the black maybe relatives, or other’s who were going to get sold and some black slave holders did it for the money, or other
A Historical Report on Race: African Americans A Historical Report on Race: African Americans Most people are aware that in the early seventeenth century Africans were brought over on trading ships to be used as slaves in the colonies that would soon earn their independence from English rule. Before the slave trade was made illegal in 1808 Africans were sold into slavery to do many things like working on cotton and tobacco plantations in the South. Slaves were treated as less than humans. They were very poorly treated. Slaves were considered property of the owners and could be treated however the owners wished.