Essay on Defending Slavery

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Defending Slavery The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of African slavery in America in the antebellum by late eighteenth century and before the antebellum crisis as discussed in Paul Finkelman’s book: Defending Slavery. This paper will summarize the first part of book taking as a main topic racial aspects of the slavery. After the introductory summary , this paper will focus in two specific sections found in the second part of the book: “Religion and Slavery” and “Racial Theory and Slavery”. Lastly, this paper will analyze these two themes used as a justification of African Slavery in early history of America In his book “Defending Slavery”, Finkelman presents a collection of historical documents …show more content…
Critical Analysis

In Paul Finkelman’s book, particularly the fragments dedicated at the defense of slavery based on racial and religious justification state that black people where created by God and placed in Africa with the unique purpose to be servant of white people. This statement was scientifically dismantled by the Charles Darwin’s Theory of Universal Common Descent published in 1889. This theory is based on reliable scientific observations, asserts that “all living organisms currently present on Earth share a common genetic ancestor with each being the descendant from a single original species.” During more than one hundred and fifty years after Darwin presented this theory, numerous researchers have proven that Darwin’s assertions were correct. In 1851, Samuel Cartwright, a well known New Orleans physician for dedicated his medical practice treating slaves and specialized on what they called “negro diseases” wrote a report to the Medical Association of Louisiana called: “The diseases and physical peculiarities of Negro race” . Cartwright’s report described about anthropology and origin of the races providing a biblical interpretation. This paper was clearly based on mere physical observations made on his medical practice rather than scientific evidence. The information about
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