Children Of God's Fire Summary

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One does need a full knowledge of the slave trade and slavery to know that those coming from the continent of Africa and those born into slavery suffered various forms of psychological rewiring, some positive but most negatively. Yet, it is scarcely asked what the mental state of the White population was. There is this generalized notion of acceptance, however, there must have been ‘something' felt by this ethnicity, or at least by some. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relations between races, specifically the racial attitudes in 18th century Portugal and Brazil. To do so, we will be using Robert Edgar Conrad’s, Children of God’s Fire: A documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil, primary source, Section 5.1, focusing …show more content…

The miner “cannot endure to hear it said that patience is necessary in dealing with slaves; for after all they are Negroes.4 While the lawyer is unable to adhere to this thought process and rather looks to the “truth,” attesting that it is what matters. He asserts that the truth is, slaves, “are also somebody’s children,” thus making them youth requiring patience (204).5 This apparent discrepancy in fundamental beliefs reveals the various Caucasian understanding of white’s role in slavery; evidently the definition of slaves was not …show more content…

One could attest that the Miner is not consciously thinking about slavery as is the Lawyer, and instead rather let his subconscious, which had been taught by his socio-economic upbringing, believe that blacks are slaves because they are black. To believe such a fallacy, among others, the Lawyer deems as ridiculous.12 The Lawyer fully acknowledges the fact that in his dealing with slaves he would treats slaves worse than anyone. He says this because he is consciously aware of the history of black slavery and its inherent evils. And due to his conscious awareness he would be able to implement the most ruthless tactics inflicting the most pain making him a closely related to a wild

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