Phillis Wheatley's Response To The Abolition Of Slavery

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Slavery was an issue in early America that plagued the African Americans who were forced into the position. It was believed, in the beginning, that the African Americans were happy to be enslaved, that it was their natural place. Many of the slaves that were taken from Africa couldn’t be more distraught with being sold into slavery but overtime as the older generation that had memories of freedom were replaced by the generation that only knew servitude. This generation was socialized into their position of enslavement, a lack of self-worth, and no access to education gave the illusion of happiness. Luckily around this time white Americans, mostly Northern, saw how wrong these inequalities were and began demanding the abolition of slavery. This …show more content…

But roughly a century later a change in this mindset was given evidence by the French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville’s sociopolitical work, Democracy in America, which identified the need for and unavoidability of the abolition of slavery and that it was America’s greed that was keeping this from happening. Both Wheatley and Tocqueville show the changing view of slaves and slavery in America within a …show more content…

Wheatley acted as a voice for her fellow slaves showing Americans that, contrary to popular belief, Africans weren’t happy with being taken from their homeland and enslaved. This created a foundation for awareness necessary to the eventual abolition of slavery. Roughly a century later Tocqueville’s stated that slavery needed to end through emancipation lest it happen through the violence of a slave revolt. It showed an awareness to the injustice of the slave condition and the rising popularity of the abolitionist movement. It documented the progress that Americans made toward the emancipation of slaves roughly a century later from Wheatley. Although the freeing of slaves would end in the violently bloodied Civil War, both Wheatley and Tocqueville show that the end of slavery was coming and another stride toward equality in America would be

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