Slavery In The South Chapter 1 Summary

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In Chapter one Oakes defines slavery in the South. In the second sentence Oakes defines slavery as the complete denial of freedom. “Every society that has ever called itself free, even as it enslaved men and women, necessarily redefined slavery in its own image. For to be, quite literally, unfree” (3). To not be free is to not have any civil rights, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Liberal societies define freedom through formal and informal rights (3). “…slaves spouses had no legal obligations to one another and parents could exercise no formal responsibilities toward their children” (4). The fact that the slaves had no legal kin that made it to where there was not a sense of community (4). “…the slaves legal kinlessness effectively deprived them of the of the most …show more content…
Oakes describes slavery as a social structure. “It dominated the social structure, drove the economy, and permeated the political system” (40). Oakes proceeds to talk about slavery and the struggles of the country. He explains his idea that slavery was the reason for the disagreement between the North and South. Oakes also says that capitalism being used mark the way land is obtained in the southern culture (43). “The development of capitalism is not complete until ‘absolute’ property rights have fully replaced the feudal system” (43). The laws of the south distinguishing a correlation among the masters and slaves that have no formal difference with the free and gave them no access to the government (51). “Across the Southern colonies, slave imports grew through the first half of the eighteenth century…the slave population was beginning to grow rapidly on its own” (51). This is talking about how the slave trade was diminishing, but slaves were reproducing on their own in essence producing more slaves rapidly. Slavery as a whole then started to grow on its own and then in the big picture became a large social