Slavery In Latin America Essay

Introduction Slavery originally started in Latin America and the West Indies by the French, Spanish, and Portuguese after the conquest, to replace the depopulated labor of the Indigenous people. Shortly after, slavery became a profitable enterprise for the capitalistic driven United States. Some of the principal laws and systems of slavery were the same in both regions, but others were later changed. It brought about many changes, with respect to African-Americans and black culture. Those changes had long lasting effects, not only on how blacks view and are viewed in society, but also on how the destruction of our culture influenced our current life-style today in United States and Latin America. Skin color is still an important factor in

Why are they different between Latin America and the United States? The slaves in Latin American were treated with some respect, based on the Roman Heritage of the conquest. The Catholic Church had a tremendous amount of power over society. Slaves that were shipped to Latin America were baptized and converted to Christianity, which granted freedom in the early colonial period. That did not last long in the United States. Unlike in the United States, the Catholic Church felt that slaves were humans, entitled church ceremonies, and received better treatment in Latin America. Those services forced the slaves owners to give Sundays and holidays off; their masters recognized how better treatment prevented acts of rebellion. They were given more rights, but their treatment depended on whether they were under the Spanish, Portuguese, or French legal code of Roman Civil Law. Each code had certain rights that slaves where entitled to. Under the Spanish and Portuguese codes, slaves could not be killed by their owners. Legally they had the right to life. Black women and children were protected by the Roman civil Law as well. Slaves could own personal property and enter into contracts. Their owners could grant them freedom through manumission, without restriction, and slaves could purchase their freedom as

The difference in the treatment of the slaves between Latin America and the U.S. proves how blacks are treated in today’s society. In Latin America race relations are much better. It was researched that there are over 40 different racial types, along with 19 different racial categories in that region, so racism at this point in history is impossible to be based on just skin color alone. Racial prejudice has been reduced over the past several decades, via social and political restructuring. Their issues are not based on skin color, but more on socio-economic factors. The black community in the Americas have not had adequate history on the culture from where thee came from, which was limited to teachings of what the whites allowed them to learn, however, Negritude is romanticized by the European Mullatos. They had/have no intention of embracing the forms and affects from the process of whitening, or social Darwinism. Instead they embrace black culture via reggae music, Rastafarianism, and radical black power movements. Those same radical black movements were discouraged in the states and led to brutal murders for those trying to uplift black society. Latin America has evolved; they have accepted and responded to the demographic changes, embraced their culture and integrated the history of African heritage into its society; the black population accounts for 85 percent or more of the population in South