African American Slavery Pros And Cons

Martin Luther King once said: “We are not makers of history, we are made of history.” We all can connect with this quote to a certain degree. A lot has happened in our history and as a result of that we are who we are today, even though sometimes history is not in our own hands to chose. The book, Soul by Soul by Walter Johnson tells the readers story of slavery that's took place on nineteenth-century, before the civil war on America by going away from the cotton plantations into the slave market itself which was the heart of the domestic slave trade. The story takes place on New Orleans.

During the 1700s-1800s, many slaves existed throughout the United States. Many of the slaves were treated poorly and did not have the help they needed, resulting in their deaths. These slaves also faced paternalism, as the owners often made the decisions for them. However, there are some slaves in particular who were treated differently. One slave, in particular, was Moses Montrose, and he was a king.

In the early united states, each set of colonies had their own rules for slavery. Some were alike in ways. Others stood out from the crowd. In the North, Middle, and the South, slaves were still being sold. Even in the 1800s.

“The South grew, but it did not develop,” is the way one historian described the South during the beginning of the nineteenth century because it failed to move from an agrarian to an industrial economy. This was primarily due to the fact that the South’s agricultural economy was skyrocketing, which caused little incentive for ambitious capitalists to look elsewhere for profit. Slavery played a major role in the prosperity of the South’s economy, as well as impacting it politically and socially. However, despite the common assumption that the majority of whites in the South were slave owners, in actuality only a small minority of southern whites did in fact own slaves. With a population of just above 8 million, the number of slaveholders was only 383,637.

Have you ever heard of the Antebellum South? The Antebellum South was how the life was like in the South of United States before the Civil War started but it was after the War of 1812. It can also be known as the Old South since this period was before the Civil War. The Antebellum Period was basically about how slaves were living in harsh/violent conditions in the South during the late 18th century. It occurred between the years of 1812-1860.

We thought slavery was a thing of the bygone era. We thought slavery went down with abolitionism in the 19th century. We also thought wrongly. People are still treated as property, women are still being forced into prostitution and children still grudgingly pick cotton. (Emancip Asia, 2015)

Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The foundation of America is freedom. Freedom from Britain. However, the freedom is limited to white males who own property. When colonists started to immigrate to America, they wanted to escape from under the rule of Britain.

“I will give Mr. Freeland the credit of being the best master I ever had, till I became my own master.” –Fredrick Douglass. The fight for the end of slavery was an issue that eventually tore the United States into two parts. Antebellum America was a period of conflict and unease due to the various differences in beliefs regarding slavery between the northern and southern states. However, American abolitionists provoked sympathy and outrage of southern slave ideals by using the rhetoric of natural rights and the Declaration of Independence, illustrating the contradiction of Christian values to slavery, and criticizing how domestic ideology conflicted with slavery.

Slavery Slavery has proved itself to be one of the most gruesome and unnerving events in the history of the planet, on par with the Holocaust. Due to this issue, many men, women, and children have fought and are still fighting for their basic human rights and yearn to be equal due to this incident in our history. With this in mind, slavery, a horrific event which started in the early 1600’s, was perpetrated against African natives and both its influence and importance has spread into the current day. Although slavery is banned today in America, it still goes on today. Slavery, of course, has been around since BC/AD times but it wasn't until “1619 in Jamestown, Virginia that 20 captive African natives were sold into slavery in the Americas”(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/timeline/1619.html).

Slavery the ownership and exploitation of one person by another is one of the oldest social relationships in human history. According to James Illingworth, “Slave labor was the basis for the wealth and prestige of ancient Greece and Rome. But the form of slavery that emerged in Europe’s American colonies was very different from the slavery of antiquity. New World slavery emerged as part of the developing capitalist world economy.” This was designed to produce raw materials and staple crops such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco for export back to the markets of Europe.

To us, the Northerners, the Civil War was a great event that banned slavery in the South. Slavery was wrong in every way in the United States because everyone was made equally and shall be treated equally. On the Constitution, it states that “all men are created equal”, the word “men” should include all white men and all black men. Freed slaves should not be captured again and used them for labor work. Freed slaves should have freedom everywhere throughout America.