My critique comes from a commentary titled " Did We Sell Each Other Into Slavery?" by Oscar L. Beard. The author is a consultant in African Studies. The commentary was written May 24, 1999, which contains a discussion about slave trading. The author wants readers to understand the history of slave trading before making any type of judgements. The author feels African American character has been negatively effected because of the remarks made about slavery. My discussion will hold two views. The views will show that I agree we did sell each other to slavery in some forms and I agree Whites had some responsibility for slavery too.
It is believed we sold each other into slavery, Beard feels whites responsibility for slavery has been overlooked. I think Whites have always been blamed for slavery but the blame should be for African Americans too. There is no excuse for either race to participate in slavery and both parties are to be blamed.
Another argument is slave trading was independent. The author states there is little documentation proving this argument. Independent slave trading is Whites used no threats, intoxicants or force to deceive Africans into slave trading. The author supports this by describing the Trans Atlantic African Slave. The Trans Atlantic African Slave was a time where the Portuguese attacked a sleeping village an took away survivors to work for free in Europe. I think slave trading was voluntary for very few but most slaves were forced. Slaves were treated badly, so I feel they wouldn't eagerly choose to be a slave. Also during the Trans Atlantic, Tippu Tip was a major collaborator in the event. He was born out of a violent rape of his mother. Tippu Tip had a white father. I am surprised that he didn't have anomosity towards Whites because of what happened to his mother. I don't understand why he wouldn't be more supportive of the Africans.
Another argument was the government sold African prisoners of war and criminals on death row to the Whites because fo recession. During recession the country suffers by a decline in their income. This would give the government a chance to come out of recession.
“Slavery is an American embarrassment” (Breen/Innes 3). The history of slavery can be very complex. While most people believe that slaves did not have the chance to advance, Breen and Innes prove that theory wrong. At least slaves had the opportunity to purchase their freedom on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Breen and Innes also point out that the relationships between blacks and whites are also not how we originally thought they were. They were not one sided relationships; they could be considered co-dependent relationships.
Slavery is a sensitive topic that most would say evil and bad. Martin states that “some African-Americans claimed that Jews were the dominant figures in the trading of black slaves. (Martin 1993). Research by Mintz and McNeil support that “After making contact with the West Africans, the Portuguese est...
Winthrop D. Jordan author of White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812, expresses two main arguments in explaining why Slavery became an institution. He also focuses attention on the initial discovery of Africans by English. How theories on why Africans had darker complexions and on the peculiarly savage behavior they exhibited. Through out the first two chapters Jordan supports his opinions, with both facts and assumptions. Jordan goes to great length in explaining how the English and early colonialist over centuries stripped the humanity from a people in order to enslave them and justify their actions in doing so. His focus is heavily on attitudes and how those positions worked to create the slave society established in this country.
Most slaves were imported from Africa against their will and sold at Slave Auctions. David Walker reasons that White Americans do not look at colored as equals. He argues that White Americans think that they better than those that are colored. Some opinions of White Americans he uses are that those who are colored are incapable of self- government, and that those who are colored are satisfied to rest in slavery to their masters and their master’s children. He also introduces the opinion that White Americans believe that “If we [Colored People] were set free in America, we would involve the country in a civil war, which assertion is altogether at variance with our feeling or design, for we ask them for nothing but the rights of man.”
The institution of slavery affected both blacks as well as whites. The white and black children could not understand why they could not be friends with each other. Douglass spoke well of the white boys that he became acquainted with because they were not as knowledgeable as the adults so he was able to create a relationship with them. No one is born prejudiced. A person must be taught those ways, so Do...
be said that this book was anti - slavery and did more disrespect to whites than
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.
...is the historical fact." Up to this date, people still depend on slaves. It might not be as harsh or as controversial as before, but still there were distinctive similarities that should be considering each one as a racist. The Black people or the Africans still carry the brand name that they were once a slave. Even so, one should not be able to acquire such idea since people of today are quite more rational and open than before.
There are no living slaves so it is impossible to compensate the people who were hurt by the cruel and oppressive practice of slavery. So, would we compensate black Americans in general for the theory that slavery has held them back? Blaming the economic problems someone has today on something that happened to his ancestors almost a century and a half ago seems like one heck of a stretch, but let’s say we buy into the argument.” (2014). Just as Hawkins is saying, there is no way to be sure that these people were truly impacted by slavery, and it would be unfair to give a mass amount of help to those who do not deserve it.
The thought of African Americans being less than whites has carried on for years and was first challenged with the abolition of slavery in 1865 with the 13th Amendment (Our Documents). Abraham Lincoln gets credit for the freeing of the slaves because he was the president who fought to get these amendments. Although slavery was no longer aloud that did not change how people felt about the African Americans. Races with darker ski...
Slavery is the idea and practice that one person is inferior to another. What made the institution of slavery in America significantly different from previous institutions was that “slavery developed as an institution based upon race.” Slavery based upon race is what made slavery an issue within the United States, in fact, it was a race issue. In addition, “to know whether certain men possessed natural rights one had only to inquire whether they were human beings.” Slaves were not even viewed as human beings; instead, they were dehumanized and were viewed as property or animals. During this era of slavery in the New World, many African slaves would prefer to die than live a life of forced servitude to the white man. Moreover, the problem of slavery was that an African born in the United States never knew what freedom was. According to Winthrop D. Jordan, “the concept of Negro slavery there was neither borrowed from foreigners, nor extracted from books, nor invented out of whole cloth, nor extrapolated from servitude, nor generated by English reaction to Negroes as such, nor necessitated by the exigencies of the New World. Not any one of these made the Negro a slave, but all.” American colonists fought a long and bloody war for independence that both white men and black men fought together, but it only seemed to serve the white man’s independence to continue their complete dominance over the African slave. The white man must carry a heavy
I would also recommend this to any history book-worms who seem to be very passionate for the scoop on the real story of past history and feel like they do not know as much information about the subject as they feel they should. This book by Boles is the opposite of what you would expect when you saw that the subject would be about slavery. When you open a book about slavery you expect to hear how horrible times were, how the past was such an iconic time due to the treatment of African Americans. I feel it is important to spread the history of our generation as we sometimes try to ignore the past. What I do know is that this book does make me wonder, is this problem still amongst us today? And if so, is it still being handled with ignorance as it was at the time it begun? Understanding slavery and race in today’s generations in the United States is a sensitive and controversial
In “Slaves and the ‘Commerce’ of the Slave Trade,” Walter Johnson describes the main form of antebellum, or pre-Civil War, slavery in the South being in the slave market through domestic, or internal, slave trade. The slave trade involves the chattel principle, which said that slaves are comparable to chattels, personal property that is movable and can be bought or sold. Johnson identified the chattel principle as being central to the emergence and expansion of slavery, as it meant that slaves were considered inferior to everyone else. As a result, Johnson argued that slaves weren’t seen as human beings and were continually being mistreated by their owners. Additionally, thanks to the chattel principle, black inferiority was inscribed
2 John Bowe, author of Nobodies: Modern Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy said if he could sum up what his book was about it would be “we all seek control. Control equals power. Power corrupts. Corruption makes us blind, tyrannical, and desperate to justify our behavior” (268). He is writing about the slave trade happening in our own Land of the Free. He wants Americans to be aware of the slave trade and recognize that it is not only happening in other countries, but effects items we use in our everyday lives, like the clothes we wear and the food we eat. As he is an immersion reporter, he visits three different sites of slavery: Florida, Tulsa, and Saipan. The stories and facts in this book are all from people who experienced some aspect of the abuses he writes about, whether a victim, a lawyer, or just a witness to the heinous crimes. He is not satisfied with half truths, which seem to fly at him, especially from those who did the abusing he was talking about, he does his research well and I appreciated that while reading this book.
And he is right. In terms of looking at history, we can see that the likes of the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, who were huge benefactors of the slave trade, did not do so on a race basis. This is proof that racism is a more recent plague to society.