Olaudah Equiano Greed Essay

Psychoanalyst and social philosopher, Erich Fromm, once said “Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” However, in comparison to other groups of people, such as Europeans, greed is not necessarily a “natural right”. The accounts of Bartolome de Las Casas, Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, and the New York Conspiracy of 1741 conveys the conquest of slavery in the Americas, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and the establishment of white identity. All in all, greed was the propulsion behind these vital historic events, thus birthing systematic oppression, psychological colonization, classism and racism in the creation of the modern world.
Spanish priest and advocate

for Native American rights, Bartolome de Las Casas, exposes the atrocities committed by the Spanish not in the name of Christianity but with the goal of acquiring wealth in the conquest of the Americas. The vile actions of the Spanish were described as “ravening wild beast, wolves, tigers, or lions that had been starved for many days.” Their tyrannical acts of raping women, beheading, hanging, and burning Natives alive resulted in exploitation and murder of more than 15 million natives. Thus, the Native world population declined to 1% from 14%. According to La Casas, “their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches…their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the cause of their villains.” This exemplifies the thin line and relationship formed between Christianity and greed. Regardless of the Natives being susceptible candidates for Christianity due to their gullible and obedient behavior, without any sermons or indoctrination, the Europeans sought to subject the Natives to this foreign religion and serve a king they do not know. Thus, religion was used as a method, excuse, and justification of the mass execution and colonization of the Americas. As a result, the Natives believed the commodity of the Christian God was gold, hence the reason noble Hatuey gathered his people around a basket of gold and stated “You see their God here, the God of the Christians. If you agree to it, let us dance for this God, who knows, it may please the God of the Christians and then they will do us no harm." All in all, the totalitarian subjections committed by the Spanish on the Natives were fueled by greed, simply to acquire the resources and wealth each country possessed and used religion as means of accomplish the conquest of Americas. This is a prime example of how the Europeans greed is a bottomless pit, for their satisfaction was never fulfilled, hence the continuous annihilation of inhabits of all the islands.
The account of Olaudah Equiano voices the differentiation of slavery in West Africa and the Americas, shedding light on the life of bondsperson during the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.

Equiano concluded the white man’s vile actions are due to their undying yearn and cupidity for wealth. He emphasized the dehumanizing and barbaric treatment of blacks such as starvation, unsanitary conditions along with the equal treatment to some whites as well. This negatively impacted him emotionally and mentally, for he “had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty; and this not only shown towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves.” Notably, by any means necessary, the Europeans greediness was so vast that they do harm to their own people. At the end of the account, Equiano used the auctioning of bonds people to symbolizing how greed is the driving force of the Slave Trade by stating “on a signal given (as the beat of a drum), the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamor with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little to increase the apprehension of terrified Africans.” In other words, the Europeans portrayed bonds people has property and were full of zeal to purchase them and as their excitement increased so did trepidation of petrified Africans. However, that was not the business nor concerns of the

exploiters, only toiling their “luxury and lust of gain…every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your [their] avarice.” Consequently, the Europeans avarice were hungry for wealth and craved for it, thus the hurriedness to purchase bonds people.
Born into slavery, creole woman, Mary Prince, discusses the vile physical and emotional impacts of slavery, in which helps solidify how greed was a vital, if not primary motive behind slavery in the Americas.

Prince was forced to endure domestic duties and farming duties and if she failed to fulfil these tasks and abide by Captain I, his wife and Mr. D, she was brutally punished “licked, and flogged, and pinched by her pitiless fingers in the neck and arms…strip me naked - to hang me up by the wrists and lay my flesh open with the cow-skin…robbed me too of the hours that belong to sleep.” Out of gluttony, to ensure that their needs were taken care of, the slave owners dehumanized bonds people in any way they could. In addition, Mary and her sisters were separated and sold to raise money for their masters wedding. Again, another example of how the exploiters inquired and only considered their well-being with no regard to the how it effects the lives of the bonds people. Prince describes the “bystanders, who were looking at us so carelessly, think of the pain that wrung the hearts of the negro woman and her young ones? No, no!... slavery hardens white people’s hearts towards the blacks; and many of them were not slow to make their remarks upon us aloud, without regard to our grief though their light words…white people have small hearts who can only feel for themselves” In fact, slavery generated the wealth of the whites, and continued to do so for three centuries because

they were greedy for more.
The New York Conspiracy of 1741 was part of a series of 80 rebellions committed by outcasts, those who were oppressed by Europeans. This included sailors, commoners, Africans, West Indians, Hispanics, and Irish, who sought to eradicate the systematic oppression and exploitation on their people, formally known as the “outcasts of the nation of the Earth” Jointed together to terminate economic exploitation, “conspiring, confederation and combining with diver negroes and others to burn the City of New-York and also kill and destroy the inhabitants thereof.” Unfortunately, this goal was short-lived and the white man made sure to eliminate that notion out of greed. Vital repercussions such as the creation and expansion of white identity, later developing into what is now known as racism and white privilege. Initially, whiteness was defined by wealth, later transitioning to skin color. By establishing these new societal norms, this divided the oppressed and poor establishing hierarchy, inferiority and superiority amongst the outcasts, separating them forever. The white man did this to ensure that their wealth was no longer jeopardize. Another exemplification of the far extents gone to ensure that the white wealth was further generated.
In essence, avarice is the foundation of the Americas’ conquest, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and the establishment of white identity. In other words, hungry to acquire wealth, power, and superiority, Europeans invented themselves as “whites” and immorally and barbarically dehumanized, demoralized, and slaughtered people of color continuously. This led to historic events such as the establishment of Jim Crow, Civil Rights Movement, the Detroit and L.A riots, or the Black Lives Matter movement. The dominant groups and some individuals of white society hunger for being on top never ended, hence the systematic and institutionalized racism and the psychological colonization of people of color and marginalized groups. All of these boils down to one reason and motive: greed.