The Code of Hammurabi the King of Babylon

However, he wanted the power and wished to be called master by his slaves (Douglass, p. 76~77). He became a cruel man from possessing all of his wife’s slaves and becoming a slaveholder. He had to be cruel to be looked like a powerful slavehol... ... middle of paper ... ...out his master and mistress who were brutalized. He just wrote about his lifetime stories, so it’s not easy to find out actually how and why slaveholders were changed by slavery. I thought it was because of the power or the fear they got from becoming slaveholders or maybe both the power and the fear were the reasons, because we can say that the fear made slaveholders want the power.

As a feudal relationship, Josiah controlled the surplus from the profit of the slaves, and Francis received an allowance for managing them. Though Francis had a higher social status and education, ran the household, and even supposedly co-partnered with her husband, Josiah still had the ultimate control. This is illustrated from the very beginning of their marriage when Josiah and a fellow merchant raped one of the slaves, despite Francis’s plead. His control in this feudal class process is further exemplified through the fact that Josiah ultimately made all the economic decisions despite Francis’s influence.

Pennington explained how it angered him when people used the excuse of “kind masters” or “well fed and well-clothed slaves” as a form of justification for slavery. This relates to paternalism, the notion that masters took responsibility for their “dependents” (women, children, and, slaves). Owners claimed that they considered slaves “part of the family” and provided them with religious instruction, food, housing, medical care, care in old age, etc.. However, this notion of “paternalism” can be misleading, as even the “mildest form of slavery” still included separation of families, starvation, physical punishment or whipping if their slaves defied them, nakedness, etc. According to Pennington, even “good” owners were not masters of the slave system; the slave system was a master of them (p.374).

It also played into ideas of chivalry, gentility, patriarchy, and honor: concepts were endangered of alteration with each sale of a slave on the market. Directly as a result of this, slave bodies became a site for cultural understanding as buyers and sellers social values began to be created and learned based on slave sales, advertising the sale of slaves, and the overall commodification of life caused by slavery. The rhetoric and culture that slaveholders used and were a part allowed the overdependence upon slaves to be downplayed. Slaveholders went as far as tying rhetoric and a social coding of sorts to the idea of freedom itself depending on slavery. All of this meant that day-to-day life itself “banked on” the black slave body.

Once slave owners assumed their role, it was easy for them to be influenced into performing heartless and cruel behaviors towards their slaves. Their position at the top of the food chain also caused them to become greedy men, which Equiano says “corrupts the milk of human kindness, and turns it into gall (111). Slaves were given false promises of reward for their servitude, and so mankind was also falling victim to the problem of lies and deception (93). The more the amount of slave owners grew, the more corrupt mankind was becoming. Where Equiano lived in Africa, slaves were either prisoners of war or criminals who committed acts such as adultery (33).

Slavery in American Society Slavery in American Society focuses in the significance of the world the Slaves made. O. Patterson clearly defines how natal alienation allowed the master to undermine and control his slaves since some of the slaves cultural identities were taken away from them. The master believed that slave management would help keep the slaves loyal to himself and make the slaves a better worker. However, the slaves did manage to form strong personal ties to assure themselves of who they were culturally. There were many significant ways that shaped the slaves' world, such as religion, spirituals, family life and conjure.

With the help of poor white people from the colony they were able to carry out the series of arson crimes against their rich white masters. This showed how slaves were willing to fight for their freedom and revolt and exposed the dysfunctional relationship between master and slave in the colony of New York, it also showed how the poor could also resort to the same measures even plot it themselves but they only need the help of

In which committing these crimes are punishable by death. Authority was used to conform and control society. The government portrayed in the book as well as in the film is referred to as “Big Brother” the mastermind of establishing a totalitarian government. A totalitarian government is a single party that rules over everything and is superior to everyone. The totalitarian government was created to prevent corruption in the society and keep the people believing in what “Big Brother” wants them to believe.

There had always been slavery in Africa amongst her own people, where men from different tribes/villages would raid other villages to kidnap the women for their pleasures, and the men to use as slaves. To learn that they could actually profit from this activity made the job of getting slaves very easy for the Europeans. Slaves acquired through raids, were transported to the seaports were they were help prisoner in forts until traded. Once the goods were off loaded in Africa and the slaves loaded, the second leg of the journey carried slaves across the Atlantic Ocean to the North Americas (the new world). It is prudent to speak here to the inhumane way in which the slaves were transported during this first leg of the journey.

Plus, a wedding vow would sometimes say “Until death or distances do you part,” because families would often be split up. This was done to keep slaves from bonding together and causing up risings. It was just another way the slave owners held power over their slaves. Even though this was true, most children were still rais... ... middle of paper ... ...nst slavery and became a well recognized abolitionist. One idea tossed around by many abolitionists was the North seceding from the South.