Dehumanization of Enslaved Africans in Jamaica

Slaves were even forced to work on their "spare" time to provide for their own needs. Needless to say, slaves encountered cruel punishment that we can’t even comprehend. The slaves however, continually resisted white supremacy causing much tension between the two social classes. Despite this, a new social class was emerging, the free coloureds. This confused matters even worse and made for a bigger separation between white and slave.

Slave owners would whip their slaves, they would brand them with their initials and they would sometimes even cut off their ears for punishment. The slaves were able to see the division between the whites and the free men of color and that they had a chance for freedom. The slave revolts and the revolts from the free men of color proved to be very successful in aiding the Haitian Revolution. The slaves and the free men of color defeated the French and eliminated most of the white population in Saint-Domingue. They were able to overthrow an old ruling class and open way for a... ... middle of paper ... ... 1848.

The Caribbean was one of the worst slave trading operations in the world. European ships sailed from Africa, where they picked up slaves, to the Caribbean. The slaves who were to weak to travel to the US or were proved to cause trouble, were dropped off in the Caribbean. Once there, the slaves harshly worked the sugar cane and tobacco plantations. This sudden flux of black slaves in the Caribbean changed the population greatly.

The slave trade which had already begun on the West Coast of Africa provided the needed labour, and a period from 1496 (Columbus's second voyage) to 1838 saw Africans flogged and tortured in an effort to assimilate them into the plantation economy. Slave labour supplied the most coveted and important items in Atlantic and European commerce: the sugar, coffee, cotton and cacao of the Caribbean; the tobacco, rice and indigo of North America; the gold and sugar of Portuguese and Spanish South America. These commodities comprised about a third of the value of European commerce, a figure inflated by regulations that obliged colonial products to be brought to the metropolis prior to their re-export to other destinations. Atlantic navigation and European settlement of the New World made the Americas Europe's most convenient and practical source of tropical and sub-tropical produce. The rate of growth of Atlantic trade in the eighteenth century had outstripped all other branches of European commerce and created fabulous fortunes.

Harvesting, planting and processing sugar cane was particularly grueling, which meant that many planters depended on the West African slaves, which were purchased through the transatlantic slave trade, to maintain their property. Because of the brutality of the white plantation owners towards the slaves, several munities erupted throughout the island. These revolts did not go unnoticed by the British people. The slave rebellions in Jamaica played a crucial part in propelling the anti-slavery movements in Britain because of the sheer number of rebellions that took place, the bloodshed and unrest among the enslaved Africans. The geography of Jamaica was not only suitable for plantations, but it also provided ample hiding places for many of the escaped ex-slaves.

In the late 1600s, Early America was marred with a myriad of controversies; none more so than the birth of slave labor. European settlers to the America were amongst the majority when purchasing African enslaved workers. Many of these people believed African slaves were not their equals and their sole purpose was to serve their superior race. This was taught through normal educational values as well as within their Christian religion. In order to lure these African slaves to the Americas, many were stolen from their home land and/or promised various falsehoods.

Life of a Slave in the Caribbean The experience of Caribbean slavery is vital in understanding the contemporary social structure of the region. It was the introduction of an estimated four million Africans to the Caribbean which made these islands melting pots of culture and society. Since Africans had such a tremendous impact on the region, it is important that we recognize the nature of slavery and how it transformed their lives. Although most agree that the institution was dehumanizing, the social relations of slavery help to explain the development of the Caribbean’s identity. In order to understand slavery it is imperative to recognize that it’s introduction to the Caribbean was driven by colonizers need for economic expansion and development.

The Slave Trade and Its Effects on Early America Slavery played an important role in the development of the American colonies. It was introduced to the colonies in 1619, and spanned until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The trading of slaves in America in the seventeenth century was a large industry. Slaves were captured from their homes in Africa, shipped to America under extremely poor conditions, and then sold to the highest bidder, put to work, and forced to live with the new conditions of America. There was no mercy for the slaves and their families as they were captured from their homes and forced onto slave ships.

Out of the 11 million African men, women, and children that were sent to the New World like common cargo, 2 million of them died. Africans were treated badly that Europeans whipped and put Africans in handcuffs to transport them. The Africans that survived were sent to work in sugar cane fields and other produce fields that Europeans thrived for like sugar, tobacco, cotton and other New World products. Many Africans and people from Europe realized that people like Europeans needed slaves and would pay anything for them. Soon after realizing, Africans began to sell their own for high amounts of money and so did Europe.

American slaveholders dehumanized slaves through both psychological stress and physical forms of brutality. Despite the ambiguity in brutality, as this relative term can be perceived differently by different cultures’ tolerance to pain, slave holders attachment and monitoring of their slaves became an overwhelming obsession. The slaveholders’ continual micromanagement and overbearing obsession always left the slaves at fault. In “Dancing for Eels,” in Raising Cain: Blackface performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop, by W.T. Lhamon, he informed the readers about the “ Great Negro Plot”.