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Slavery has been present in societies almost all over the world for several thousands of years. Men, women, and children are cruelly treated in harsh living conditions. Thousands of innocent people have been taken from their families, abused, and worked until they died or was murdered. Furthermore, slavery has an even darker side as many women and young girls who were viewed as property were constantly raped. This created a particular conflict for the southern plantation slave-owners in the newly discovered land that became America. William Byrd’s secret diary reflects many conflicts within himself, his wife, and his plantation as he forces various sexual relationships with his slaves. William Byrd was the owner of a plantation in Westover,
Slavery is perhaps the most polarizing subject of American history. Because of this, actual conditions of slavery are biased and marred by personal opinion. The abolitionists made use of the plights of slave in order to push their propaganda whereas the pro-slavery apologists maintained ignorance regarding the treatment of slaves. Because of these varied perspectives, the sources regarding the true nature of slavery are littered with bias. This bias leaves the modern historian trying to decipher the truth behind manipulated propaganda tales. This was the norm until 1956. It was this year in which Kenneth M. Stampp released his book entitled, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. Stampp successfully managed to create a book regarding slavery in the South without inserting his own personal bias. Because of this, Stampp was able to conclude that slavery was used primarily to exploit labor and to produce substantial revenue gains.
There are many contradictions pertaining to slavery, which lasted for approximately 245 years. In Woody Holton’s “Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era”, Holton points out the multiple instances where one would find discrepancies that lie in the interests of slaveowners, noble figures, and slaves that lived throughout the United States. Holton exemplifies this hostility in forms of documents that further specify and support his claim.
Although a practice not viewed positively by all, slavery, a least in this document, could be justified in the eyes of slavers.
In Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, personal accounts that detail the ins-and-outs of the system of slavery show readers truly how monstrous and oppressive slavery is. Families are torn apart, lives are ruined, and slaves are tortured both physically and mentally. The white slaveholders of the South manipulate and take advantage of their slaves on every possible occasion. Nothing is left untouched by the gnarled claws of slavery; even God and religion become tainted. As Jacobs’ account reveals, whites control the religious institutions of the South, and in doing so, forge religion as a tool used to perpetuate slavery, the very system it ought to condemn.
The controversies surrounding slavery have been established in many societies worldwide for centuries. In past generations, although slavery did exists and was tolerated, it was certainly very questionable,” ethically“. Today, the morality of such an act would not only be unimaginable, but would also be morally wrong. As things change over the course of history we seek to not only explain why things happen, but as well to understand why they do. For this reason, we will look further into how slavery has evolved throughout History in American society, as well as the impacts that it has had.
William Byrd was a wealthy planter, a man of great learning, and a slave owner from Virginia in the early eighteen century, who kept a diary of his daily activities written in a secret code. Through his diary excerpts, we are able to see day-to-day aspects of Byrd 's life. It seems to be one of routine and repetition. They are grouped in three periods: early morning, dinners, and what followed in the afternoon and evening then finished with the hope of getting good health, good thoughts, good humors, and his thanks to God. For instance, he wrote about what time he had gotten up in the morning, what he had read, what he had prayed, what he had eaten and who he had punished in that one day, like: "[February 8, 1709] I rose at 5 'oclock this
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
Many plantation owners were men that wanted their plantation ran in a particular manner. They strove to have control over all aspects of their slaves’ lives. Stephanie Camp said, “Slave holders strove to create controlled and controlling landscapes that would determine the uses to which enslaved people put their bodies.” Mary Reynolds was not a house slave, but her master’s daughter had a sisterly love towards her, which made the master uncomfortable. After he sold Mary he had to buy her back for the health of his daughter. The two girls grew apart after the daughter had white siblings of her own. Mary wa...
The history of slavery in America is one that has reminders of the institution and its oppressive state of African Americans in modern times. The slaveholders and the slaves were intertwined in a cruel system of oppression that did not yield to either side. The white slaveholders along with their black slaves became codependent amongst each other due to societal pressures and the consequences that would follow if slaves were emancipated with race relations at a high level of danger. This codependency between the oppressed and the oppressor has survived throughout time and is prevalent in many racial relationships. The relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor can clearly be seen in Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred. In this novel, the protagonist Dana Franklin, a black woman, time travels between her present day 1977 and the antebellum era of 19th century Maryland. Throughout her journeys back to the past, Dana comes in contact with her white ancestor, Rufus Weylin, a white slave owner and Dana ultimately saves his life and intermingles with the people of the time. Butler’s story of Dana and her relationship with Rufus and other whites as she travels between the past and the present reveals how slaveholders and slaves depended on and influenced one other throughout the slaves bondage. Ultimately, the institution of slavery reveals how the oppressed and the oppressor are co-dependent; they need each other in order to survive.
For most American’s especially African Americans, the abolition of slavery in 1865 was a significant point in history, but for African Americans, although slavery was abolished it gave root for a new form of slavery that showed to be equally as terrorizing for blacks. In the novel Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas Blackmon he examines the reconstruction era, which provided a form of coerced labor in a convict leasing system, where many African Americans were convicted on triumphed up charges for decades.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.
Slavery was a fulsome practice that was practiced by the Southern states in the antebellum and Civil War period. This practice viewed today, and by some then as morally unacceptable, was accepted in Southern society as a necessary evil. Many Northerners and some Southerners alike did not know how slaves suffered, but one slave would show how the slaves suffered. This slave's name was Frederick Douglass. In his book The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, he exposed the horrors of slavery. Douglass tells of the atrocities of slavery, to expose the defense of the cruel atrocities by slaveholders, and to incite the Northern populace to exhort the abolishment of slavery.
Slavery was the core of the North and South’s conflict. Slavery has existed in the New World since the seventeenth century prior to it being exclusive to race. During those times there were few social and political concerns about slavery. Initially, slaves were considered indentured servants who will eventually be set free after paying their debt(s) to the owner. In some cases, the owners were African with white servants. However, over time the slavery became exclusive to Africans and was no limited to a specific timeframe, but life. In addition, the treatment of slaves worsens from the Atlantic Slave trade to th...
The topic of slavery in the United States has always been controversial, as many people living in the South were supportive of it and many people living in the North were against it. Even though it was abolished by the Civil War before the start of the 20th century, there are still different views on the subject today. Written in 1853, the book Twelve Years a Slave is a first person account of what it was like for Solomon Northup to be taken captive from his free life in the North and sold to a plantation as a slave in the South, and his struggle to regain his freedom. Through writing about themes of namelessness, inhumanity, suffering, distrust, defiance, and the desire for freedom, Northup was able to expose the experiences and realities of slavery.
This is the account of an ex-slave by the name of William Barker who now resides in Bethany, AL. He is approximately 95 years old and lives in a little shack with a plot of land. He has worked for some local townsfolk doing some grounds keeping and gardening since he was freed when he was 20. But for the most part, Barker keeps to himself. He has no wife and no children. He is only 5 foot 4 and may weigh about 145 lbs. As a slave he worked as a gardner, and later learned to cook, but soon thereafter was freed. Gardening is all he seems to know. However, he seems very proficient at hunting. He says that is the only way he keep alive, living off what God gives him from the land and water. He was son to Frances William and Eliza William. His father died in the war. Because of his size and ability to cook, William Barker did not go to war. His mammy died within weeks of being free due to starvation. Here is his account