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The Treatment of African and Native Slaves:
Through the Accounts of Bartolome de las and Olaudah Equiano
Slavery will forever remain a tragically horrific stain in American history not only because of the actual act of enslavement, but the treatment of the salves. Slaves were largely of Native American and African descent. The accounts of Bartolome de las Casas and Olaudah Equiano provide two uniquely different viewpoints on their experience of slavery. Defeated, displaced, and tortured, the natives and African people were involuntarily separated from their families and homes to be put in such conditions.
Bartolome de las Casas is a Spanish priest who traveled to the Americas in the early 1500s and wrote of his experiences with the natives. Originally, he was full of moral neglect and too took advantage of the natives. However, once he became a priest, he saw that these actions went against Christian teachings. He then renounced slavery and even protested the notion. His actions resulted in Casas being hailed as the “protector of the Indies” (p.39) by the Spanish government. In The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies, he used of the title “Christians” when referring to the native captors, as if to add emphasis of shame and disbelief on the severity of their transgressions. Initially, the Europeans travelers were given a non-confrontational greeting of food as the natives were mystified by their arrival. Soon after, the opportunity provided to be too great to pass and the Christians to capitalized in excess.
They began to attack the natives as if without a conscious, forcing them to flee to the mountains. Those could not escape were mortally wounded and released to be an example. As Casas stated, “they behaved...
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...rtolome de las Casas and Olaudah Equiano painted a vibrant picture on the conditions of slavery from a captor and the captive’s perspective. Although separated by time, their words evoke the same atmosphere.
Works Cited
"Bartoleme De Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies." Bartoleme De Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies. Swarthmore College, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
Baym, Nina, Philip F. Cura, Wayne Franklin, Jerome Klinkowitz, Arnold Krupat, Robert S. Levine, Mary Loeffelholz, Jeanne Campbell Reesman, and Patricia B. Wallace. “Bartolome De Las Casas (1474-1566).” ”Olaudah Equino (1745?-1797).” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York, NY: Norton, 2012. 38-42,687-721. Print.
Groleau, Rick, Linda Mizzel, and Catherine Benedict, comps. Africans in America. PBS.org. WGBH Interactive, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.
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