Comparing The Chattel Slavery And The Colonial Penal System

Prison reform has been an ongoing topic in the history of America, and has gone through many changes in America's past. Mixed feelings have been persevered on the status of implementing these prison reform programs, with little getting done, and whether it is the right thing to do to help those who have committed a crime. Many criminal justice experts have viewed imprisonment as a way to improve oneself and maintain that people in prison come out changed for the better (encyclopedia.com, 2007). In the colonial days, American prisons were utilized to brutally punish individuals, creating a gruesome experience for the prisoners in an attempt to make them rectify their behavior and fear a return to prison (encyclopedia.com, 2007). This practice may have worked 200 years ago, but as the world has grown more complex, time has proven that fear alone does not prevent recidivism. In the 19th century, Dorothea Dix, a women reformer and American activist, began lobbying for some of the first prison reform movements.

Throughout history, slavery has been a common method of labor production. Globally, many countries have a history of using harsh labor to assemble goods and services. The Russian Serfs and African Slaves are comparable examples of forced labor. Although both serfs and slaves were put in similar positions, the most notable difference between the two was the difference in reasoning behind the labor.

“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. No more than one-quarter of the white population partook in slavery itself, this including all the members of slave owning families and all those living in slave owning families. Given that, however, virtually every

Slavery was the driving force for most of the political controversies during the 19th century. Not only has slavery created political controversies in the United States, but throughout the world.The Fugitive Slave Acts, revolts, and a political argument indicating if slavery should be legalized are the main aspects that caused these disputes.

“A Woman Doing Life” is a unique book that describes and understands the experiences of incarcerated women. The author, Erin George, herself got arrested with charge of murder of her husband and was sentenced to prison for 603 years. She portrayed the true picture of how women, especially those with no criminal backgrounds, seek their identity in this ‘no exit’ place and find ways to adapt harsh painful circumstances in female correctional setting. It is a common misconception that officers of such institutions are always taking advantage of incarcerated women for the satisfaction of their own sexual desires. But, the real picture is not as bad as it is perceived. The system of prison is based on cooperation between inmates and the officers. Both support each other for smoother environment. Since females demand cigarettes and other drugs, so they exchange favors with officers. Sometimes the workers also target emotionally weak girls and may assault them but this is not a routine activity.

The treatment of slaves between the North and the South was drastically different. Slaves in the North typically lived in the same house as their master and worked by themselves, or in small groups (pg. 94). Slaves in the South tended to live in large plantations in which they were housed in plantation outbuildings (pg. 104). The difference between the North and the South in housing and working environment had a direct effect on the integration of African Americans into their new American society. When they were housed in the North with their masters and had limited exposure to other slaves, they tended to adopt the ways of their masters. This was different from the South in that after the day’s labor was finished, slaves typically retreated

Angela Davis demonstrates the ongoing violent abuse as she quotes a report on sexual maltreatment in women’s prisons, “We found that male correctional employees have vaginally, anally, and orally raped female prisoners and sexually assaulted and abused them” (Davis 78). However disturbing this blunt sexual contact that male officers take with the vulnerable prisoners may be, the officers adopt even more severe tactics to harass and abuse the women as they often utilize “mandatory pat-frisks or room searches to grope women 's breasts, buttocks, and vaginal areas...” (Davis 79). To add insult to injury, women are virtually incapable of escaping from their abuser(s). Prison employees upkeep their inappropriate behavior as it is believed they will “rarely be held accountable, administratively or criminally” (Davis 78). Davis specifies that the lack of accountability for inappropriate behavior is caused by faulty administrative action as she explains, “Grievance or investigatory procedures, where they exist, are often ineffectual...” (78). Since women’s prisons were established, sexual abuse has been used as a form of punishment, although this is not formally acknowledged by prison officials, it is undeniable that women’s prison staff more than oftentimes engage in sexual

Slavery existed a long time before it came to the colonies. Americans used slaves for plantation and their agricultural enterprise. By bringing slaves this allowed a big amount of workers to be controlled by one owner. It wasn’t until later slavery became a black thing. The first Africans Slaves came to America as indentured Servants they would work for their freedom. Later colonist began to realize slaves were not claimed under the protection of English laws. So their services could not expire. Their children would also be slaves and their skin color would set them apart. Slaves had not been recognized as a race thing it started with religion. Africans became known as aliens. They were a different color. They had a different religion and social practice so they were able to be enslaved like poor Englishmen couldn’t. They also

Slavery began long before the colonization of North America. This was an issue in ancient Egypt, as well as other times and places throughout history. In discussing the evolution of African slavery from its origins, the resistance and abolitionist efforts through the start of the Civil War, it is found to have resulted in many conflicts within our nation.

The New York Historical Society (n.d.) states, “historically New York has been considered the capital of American liberty, hosting monuments devoted to freedom and promoting economic ambition as well as diversity; however, it is also, paradoxically, the capital of American slavery.” Slavery in New York started in the 1600s when the Dutch West India Company brought African slaves to what is today New York (GSA, n.d.). During the 17th and 18th-century, slavery was considered an investment and according to the New York Historical Society (n.d.), “almost every businessman in the 18th-century had a stake in the traffic of human beings.” Slaves improved the economy, they produced sugar, tobacco, indigo, coffee, chocolate, and cotton, which permitted

A question that has left many Americans puzzled is, was the civil was inevitable? Could the United States of America survived without the famous war? Would America be split in half? To answer this question one must look back and the reason the civil war happened and how it affected America.

During the American colonial period, slavery was legal and practiced in all the commercial nations of Europe. The practice of trading in and using African slaves was introduced to the United States by the colonial powers, and when the American colonies received their common law from the United Kingdom, the legality of slavery was part of that law.

The population of the English colonies on American soil slowly but steadily grew: in 1625 it was 2 thousand. People, in 1650 rose to 50 thousand., And by 1700 was already a quarter of a million. Virginia and Massachusetts were the largest English settlement, at the beginning of the XVIII century they lived almost half of the colonists. Another third of the total population accounted for Maryland, Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania. In New England, people preferred to settle in cities with dense buildings; in the south dominated by sparsely scattered County; Mid colony combine both types of settlements.

Slavery was a life changing, horrific, and difficult time for the African Americans. They went through several trials daily. They came to America in 1619. Slavery became popular in the American colonies during the 18th century when slavery began to become well known and taken for granted. Slaves worked on tobacco,rice,cotton, and indigo plantations. It was from there that slavery was known to every colony.

In the 1800, 6 to 7 million black slave came to be used for plantation and help them build their new nation. They helped grow two main things tobacco and cotton they had about 4 million slaves for the tobacco and for cotton they had about 2 million slaves. They said that were going to be used for labor source and the colonists became slaves to.