Perspectives on Slavery: A Historical Analysis

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Voices from the Slave Trade Slavery is something that has been going on in our society for many centuries. Notably, “The Atlantic slave trade was an enormous enterprise and enormously significant in modern world history” (Strayer, 1142). We may look at this in present day as a horrific thing, although many of our ancestors thought of it as an essential part of society. There are many different views that have been provided throughout history of slave trade. I am going to share two views from our textbook; one from an autobiography of the hardships a former slave went through, and the other is a letter from a king whose kingdom is suffering from the result of slave trade. I am going to discuss both of these views and certain aspects each contain, and then I am going to …show more content…

He states in the passage, “I was again sold, and carried through a number of places, till, after traveling a considerable time, I came to a town called Tinmah, in the most beautiful country I had yet seen in Africa… Their money consisted of little white shells, the size of the fingernail. I was sold here for one hundred and seventy-two of them by a merchant who lived and brought me there” (Equino, 1144). This is a clear example of how they were treated as property. This merchant purchased Equino, which is a human being, just because he knew he could sell him and make a profit from him back where he lived. This is how many merchants made most of their money and this went on for centuries. The third and last thing I would like to discuss that Equino gives us insight on is what it was like to be transported oversea as a slave. Equino shares with us not only the things that occur on board of a slave ship but he also includes the thoughts that he has from the perspective of a slave. He first believes that he will die on the ship due to various things he sees. Two things he includes towards the end of the passage that stick out to me are, “…and quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell

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