Essay on slavery in america

Submitted By studentlearner34
Words: 1371
Pages: 6
Open Document
Slavery complicated family relationships in many ways, whether it was between parents and children or husbands and wives, the concept of family was negatively affected as a whole. Washington DC was created and based upon the foundations of liberty and freedom, the same foundations that our nation lives by on a daily basis. However, it’s ironic that the same place that is supposed to stand for liberty and freedom is the same place where slavery and the slave trade had always been legal. Washington DC was also the place where a woman by the name of Eliza helplessly watched as her son Randall was won by a planter from Baton Rouge. She begged and pleaded for the planter to buy her and her daughter as well, and if he did, she promised to be the most faithful slave. The slave trader threatened her with a hundred lashes and the outcome remained the same.

Slavery complicated relationships with parents and children, because children had no one to turn too, because parents couldn’t help them. All parents could do was pray and advise their children to do the best that they could do in their work. When parents attempted and tried to take up for their children, they faced the same consequences, whether it was beatings, flogging, or humiliation. Parents suffering the same consequences as their children, has to make the children feel helpless, and defensless. Reason being parents are always suppose to be there in order to protect and provide for their children.

The relationships between wives and husbands was also complicated as well. An example of this can be made evident through the story of Josiah Henson, whos father was brutally executed because he struck a white man while trying to protect his wife. After he was executed his wife along with their three children were all auctioned off to different locations, where again the mother begged and pleaded for the opportunity to keep just one child. Resulting in her being kicked and pushed to the side as if she didn’t exist.

Violence played a major role in the institutuion of slavery. Violence was put into place with the purpose to instill order. Whether a slave was beat, flogged, jhumiliated, or executed, it was to set an example so that the other slaves would not follow in their footsteps (such as trying to escape or not finishing a job) and continue to obey their owners and unjust laws. Violence was also put into place in order to show slaves that they were nothing more than just property and as humans they were worthless. Some slave owners resorted to violence for pure enjoyment. Instruments of torture were ordinarally used but if a planter or master didn’t have one of those instruments, he would simply use a chair, a broom, tongs, shovels, shears, knife handle, heavy heel of a slipper, or even a bunch of keys. Lewis Clark described one instrument of torute that was so brutal, that it was worth informing us about. This instrument of torture was that of an Oak club, which was a foot and a half in length and an inch and a half square. With this instrument slaves would be beat upon their feet and their hands until they blistered. Lewis Clark believed she was hated by Ms. Banton (daughter of the slave master) because she was light skinned and had some of ms. Bantons fathers blood coursing through her veins. She also exclaims that woman or males of mixed descent are treated the worst because of the hatred that flows through the mistresses veins.

4.Though some slave experiences were different, I believe slaves as a whole were unable to escape or resist the feeling of oppression. There were many factors that played a role in slaves being able to cope with oppression such as family (to a certain extent) and religion; however, being able to totally resist oppression I don’t believe happened. In these narratives the concept of family wasn’t even enough to steer clear of oppression. Families were often broken apart and separated not only for business practices but also for the pure
Show More

Related Documents: Essay on slavery in america

Slavery In America

Slavery: the result of racial superiority or economics? This question has risen many debates among historians, and rightly so as slavery dates back to ancient cultures like the Romans and the Greeks. Such practices even link back to ancient Mesopotamia in the Hammurabi code, the earliest known system of laws, to the founding of the New World. In all of these forms, slaves were used to benefit the economy through labor. Indeed, racism was a result of slavery because of the white superiority complex…

Words 918 - Pages 4

Essay On Slavery In America

A slave is someone who is own by another person. Slavery has existed for centuries and there are still forms of slavery in different parts of the world. For America slavery started in 1619 when slaves were being brought to Jamestown,Virginia (Slavery in America). When the civil war ended in 1865 slavery in the United States ended but that did not end the inequality and the injustice we have in America. The history of slavery was just one of the struggles this world has had and it is big part on how…

Words 445 - Pages 2

Slavery And Racism In America

Watson 1
Taylor Watson
Julie Wells
English 11/American Studies 
10 October 2014 A History of Slavery and Racism in America
 In times of slavery in America, dark skin and slavery went hand-in-hand; all slaves were African American and nearly all African Americans were slaves. Historically, American society used physical and psychological means to keep races strictly segregated. Cruel and inhumane treatment of African Americans was an accepted and expected practice for numerous years. By the end…

Words 696 - Pages 3

Kolchin: Slavery In America

reviews slavery in America starting from when the first settlers arrived in the New World, bring slaves with them around 1619. He proceeds thought the American Revolution and then into the antebellum period, which started after the Revolutionary War and lasted until sometime after the Civil War. Kolchin covers the hardships the slaves had to endure in America along with Social and Religious issues. He compares many aspects of slavery to other counties such as the Caribbean, South America, and the…

Words 630 - Pages 3

Slavery And Discrimination In America

American slavery, born in the early 1600s, would essentially transform our nation and mold it into what America is today. Back in the 17th century there were really only two types of perspectives towards life as an effect of slavery; you either hit the lottery at life or you worked for the rest of your life. In spite of the fact slavery caused physical, mental, and psychological suffering to hundreds and thousands of African families. Down the line American slavery took a slight turn that would eventually…

Words 1404 - Pages 6

Slavery In America Essay

Slavery in the United States had ramifications that are still found in modern society; these consequences can still be seen in the Northern perceptions of equality when it comes to the African American population. People in the North sought to change those who were once slaves into productive citizens that were eager to serve their new nation that fought for the freedom of slaves in rebelling states. However, there were hurdles that the Northerners had to cross in understanding how equal status for…

Words 898 - Pages 4

Slavery In Colonial America

Introduction: Back then in colonial times slavery was a big part of life. Slaves cost about $40,000 in today's money. Slavery is still happening around the world. There are about 30 million slaves in the world, even in the U.S , there are still 60,000 slaves in America and 5 million of those 30 million are enslaved children. Enslaving black people was legal in all the 13 colonies . More than half of them lived in Virginia and Maryland and in the Chesapeake region where they made up of 50 to 60…

Words 814 - Pages 4

Slavery In America In The 1800s

States was getting ready to face one of its hardest decisions ever. The issue of whether or not slavery would be allowed in America. The US was drastically changed in the coming years and it would never be the same again. Enslaved blacks had little to no rights in the beginning of the 19th century but after many influencing factors and the bloody civil war, they were able to achieve freedom. Slavery first began in the 1600s and wasn’t abolished until December of 1865. During…

Words 1716 - Pages 7

Effects Of Slavery In America

Slavery in America started around 1619 when the first ships carrying human cargo docked in Jamestown Virginia. The human cargo aboard would aid in building North America and changing the course of American history forever. African slaves brought to America endured cruel and unusual physical abuse on the course to creating the America we know of today. Physical abuse took different forms including: inhuman conditions and beatings. Among the very first acts of physical abuse to African slaves…

Words 570 - Pages 3

Slavery In Colonial America

By 1807-1808, when Great Britain and the United States outlawed the slave trade, nine million people (give or take) had been transported from Africa to the New World, the Americas. Forced into damp cramped living quarters on the slave ships, millions of slaves died while crossing the Middle Passage, their bodies cast overboard without ceremony to either hopefully sink down into the depths of the ocean or to be devoured by a hoard of sharks. The rest of the slaves—the lucky ones or unlucky ones, depending…

Words 1769 - Pages 8