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Slavery in the 19th century
Slavery in the 19th century
Effects of slavery on african americans
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During the nineteenth century, America faced what is considered to be one of the most gruesome times in today’s history. Because of slavery in the South and the effects of the Civil War, people in today’s society recognize this time period as one many would avoid discussing. According to Stephen V. Ash, “Southern Slavery was a harsh system —cruel is a better word—that was now and then tampered by acts of kindness on the part of paternalistic whites” (xv). Although there were a small amount of slave owners who were kindhearted, the majority of the South was dominated by slave holders who believed in white supremacy. Ultimately, because many slaves endured extremely callous experiences through forced marriages, repressed education, and revolting living conditions, slave owners were able to create a suppressive atmosphere for slaves during …show more content…
In the beginning of slavery, slaveholders used the Africans as a tool to help with the establishment of the different colonies. However, as slavery progressed over time, numerous slaveholders in the South began to view slavery as a social status symbol, believing that “enslaving blacks was necessary and proper” (Ash 1). For this reason, many slave owners encouraged the idea of marriage among the slaves. Therefore, by creating a false sense of justification for the enslavement of Africans, white Southerners were also able to maintain a clear conscience while participating in such heinous acts. One example that exemplifies this point is through Solomon Northup’s personal account of slavery in his bibliography Twelve Years A Slave: “Marriage is frequently contracted during the holidays, if such an institution may be said to exist
Between 1800 and 1860 slavery in the American South had become a ‘peculiar institution’ during these times. Although it may have seemed that the worst was over when it came to slavery, it had just begun. The time gap within 1800 and 1860 had slavery at an all time high from what it looks like. As soon as the cotton production had become a long staple trade source it gave more reason for slavery to exist. Varieties of slavery were instituted as well, especially once international slave trading was banned in America after 1808, they had to think of a way to keep it going – which they did. Nonetheless, slavery in the American South had never declined; it may have just come to a halt for a long while, but during this time between 1800 and 1860, it shows it could have been at an all time high.
When reading about the institution of slavery in the United States, it is easy to focus on life for the slaves on the plantations—the places where the millions of people purchased to serve as slaves in the United States lived, made families, and eventually died. Most of the information we seek is about what daily life was like for these people, and what went “wrong” in our country’s collective psyche that allowed us to normalize the practice of keeping human beings as property, no more or less valuable than the machines in the factories which bolstered industrialized economies at the time. Many of us want to find information that assuages our own personal feelings of discomfort or even guilt over the practice which kept Southern life moving
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...
As the United States grew, the institution of slavery became a way of life in the southern states, while northern states began to abolish it. While the majority of free blacks lived in poverty, some were able to establish successful businesses that helped the Black community. Racial discrimination often meant that Blacks were not welcome or would be mistreated in White businesses and other establishments. A comparison of the narratives of Douglass and Jacobs demonstrates the full range of demands and situations that slaves experienced, and the mistreatment that they experienced as well. Jacobs experienced the ongoing sexual harassment from James Norcom, just like numerous slave women experienced sexual abuse or harassment during the slave era. Another issue that faced blacks was the incompetence of the white slave owners and people. In ...
Slavery is, and was at the time, the most troubling aspect of the European project in the New World. The conquest and slaughter of the indigenous people was terrible, but not entirely out of step with the war-mongering values of 16th century Europe. But the importation of kidnapped people to create a permanent sub-class of chattel slaves to live and work among the colonists as livestock – that was ethically problematic for many right from the start. From the beginning of the British Colonies in North America through the US Civil War the “peculiar institution”, as it was known, created a moral dissonance for many whites. This is especially true after the founding of the United States upon a principle of liberty and equality. From the perspective of the enslaved Africans and their descendants in America, the sound of slavery was more cataclysmic than dissonant and its echoes are still heard to this day.
Douglass's narrative is, on one surface, intended to show the barbarity and injustice of slavery. However, the underlying argument is that freedom is not simply attained through a physical escape from forced labor, but through a mental liberation from the attitude created by Southern slavery. The slaves of the South were psychologically oppressed by the slaveholders' disrespect for a slave’s family and for their education, as well as by the slaves' acceptance of their own subordination. Additionally, the slaveholders were trapped by a mentality that allowed them to justify behavior towards human beings that would normally not be acceptable. In this manner, both slaveholder and slave are corrupted by slavery.
According to Jourdon Anderson‘s “Letter To My Old Master” (Anderson, J. 1969), slavery and lingering racism were extreme in the 1800s. The end of the Civil War, however, attempted to address some social concerns of the freed slaves, with efforts to make blacks economically independent. Former slave owners demanded services from their old slaves on personal consent, the promising better treatment.
When one thinks of slavery, they may consider chains holding captives, beaten into submission, and forced to work indefinitely for no money. The other thing that often comes to mind? Stereotypical African slaves, shipped to America in the seventeenth century. The kind of slavery that was outlawed by the 18th amendment, nearly a century and a half ago. As author of Modern Slavery: The Secret World of 27 Million People, Kevin Bales, states, the stereotypes surrounding slavery often confuse and blur the reality of slavery. Although slavery surely consists of physical chains, beatings, and forced labor, there is much more depth to the issue, making slavery much more complex today than ever before.
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...
Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.
Through the 16th to the 19th century, slavery was closely intertwined on a global scale on the basis of economics. Slavery, especially in the Americas, became a colonial and empirical institution, which then made those societies dependent on coerced, forced labor for many economical activities based on racial hatred and violence. At each stage in the transatlantic slave trade, African people experienced systematic violence and oppression, shaped by racist capitalistic ideas that white opportunists profited from. Slavery was never an inevitable outcome of African and European encounters, but it developed in this way because of the search for wealth and money, combined with severe white supremacy and ethnocentrism. As slavery continued to develop, and many countries, such as the emerging United States in the late 18th century, had slaves as a major part of their economic model. Then, especially in slave ships and markets, there was a process of dehumanization that made the white sailors disengage themselves from the misery and brutality they were inflicting on people. It could be argued that violence was a necessity from Europeans’ perspectives, to try to keep enslaved people from revolting, and disrupting the flow of wealth they had obtained from the cruelty of slavery. Their wealth, was dependent on the continuation of slavery, which was why this system was so brutal by nature. The people in
Beginning in the 1830s, white abolitionists attempted to prove that American slaves suffered physically, emotionally, and spiritually at the hands of those who claimed their ownership (Pierson, 2005). Like those that were seen in our American literature text book. Not only did they suffer from those things, but they also had trouble with their identity once they moved on or was freed from slavery, that’s why we seen a lot of the former slaves changing their identity. Abolitionists were determined to educate the public on how badly slaves were being treated. They even argued the basic facts of Southern plantation life such as slave holders divided families, legalized rape, and did not recognize slave marriages as legitimate (Pierson, 2005). In the interregional slave trade, hundreds of thousands of slaves were move long distance from their birthplace and original homes as the slave economy migrated from the eastern seaboards to Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas (Thornton...
Before the Civil War, slavery was at its peak in the Southern states such as Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. During this period life as a slave owner was luxurious, but life as a slave was excruciating. Numerous slaves during this time period were treated inhumanly in ways that normal people couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Slaves before the Civil War were whipped, raped, burned, and even branded. Many slaves in the Southern states during this era saw the torment to much and contemplated suicide such as Fountain Hughes who stated, “If I thought, had any idea, that I’d ever be a slave again, I’d take a gun an’ jus’ end it all right away because your nothing but a dog.” Just like the brutality seen in the South before the Civil War slaves
The inhumane treatment of slaves in America permanently damaged the psyche of the African American race which endured a considerable amount of damage due to slavery. The damage that slaves received was administered through countless horrible practices done by slave owners. These practices range from physical abuse to lasting psychological damage. Also, slavery lasted for 245 years causing multiple generations of African Americans were enslaved. This means these practices were engraved into slaves making a change to the African American race as a whole an inevitability. Slavery’s deadly grip on the African American race caused changes to occur that have become threaded into the dna of every African American. Slavery led to the destruction of
Slavery has been a part of human practices for centuries and dates back to the world’s ancient civilizations. In order for us to recognize modern day slavery we must take a look and understand slavery in the American south before the 1860’s, also known as antebellum slavery. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary defines a slave as, “a man who is by law deprived of his liberty for life, and becomes the property of another” (B.J.R, pg. 479). In the period of antebellum slavery, African Americans were enslaved on small farms, large plantations, in cities and towns, homes, out on fields, industries and transportation. By law, slaves were the perso...