Slave Revolts

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The topic of slave revolts is often overlooked in American history due to the lack of uprisings and the size of rebellions when they occur. Even though the amount of successful revolts were lacking, the threats for revolts were much more effective in that they had a great influence on several aspects of slavery and life. The few thriving rebellions were great in history and affected many. The Declaration Of Independence, Virginia Declaration of Rights, as well as in the Massachusetts Constitution and others state that “all men are created equal” but slaves were not included considering how inhumane they were treated. This treatment of the slaves lead to the constant threat and follow through of rebellions against slave owners. This hints at questions of whether slaves were even thought to be humans or citizens at this time. Based on the rebellions, documents, and actual definition of what a human and citizen are, slaves were not considered or treated equal.
The slave uprisings that were successful helped prove some reasons for why the slaves rebelled in the first place. The most common explanation for slave rebellions between mid 1700s to late 1800s was the slave’s owner treatment towards the slaves. The way the owners of these slaves treated them was inhumane and wrong on many levels. In a passage written about slave life, the author spoke about the conditions the slaves had to endure on a daily basis. “Life on the fields meant working sunup to sundown six days a week and having food sometimes not suitable for an animal to eat.” This type of surrounding was one of the major explanations for why slaves revolted. Slaves were whipped, tortured, and/or killed if they did something wrong. The owners were “paid to get the most work ...

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...t considered humans or citizens. Starting with the Three-Fifths Compromise, they were seen as sub-human and not equal to their white owners. There was an on going issue during the making of the Three-Fifths Compromise, which was allowing slaves to vote as a “person”. This problem caused a split between the two groups of delegates. The delegates from the south wanted to count the slaves so they could be used to their advantage while the northerners did not want them to be counted with the whites because it would be seen as a disadvantage. This disagreement was settled when the “Three-fifths Compromise allowed each state to count three fifths of each Black person in determining political representation in the House”
As time passed the amount laws for owning slaves and dealing with slaves grew. Slaves were looked at as property by law, “no different from a cow”

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