Chattel Slavery In Ancient Egypt

Slavery can be dated back to very early civilizations and were crucial in everyday activities, also to the economy. Some of these ancient civilizations include the India, Mesopotamian and Chinese and these had slaves work in their homes or their shops. Another early civilization who used slaves were the Egyptian who used the slaves to build their monuments, castles, palaces and statues. Hebrews also used slaves but were a little more moral on how they were identified. The Aztec, Inca and Mayan used slaves in many forms and most of these slaves were optained through war prisoners and were used in agriculture and warfare.

The earliest form of slavery in North America can be traced back to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. There, they were called the “Twenty and Odd” and considered servants rather than slaves. Though little is known about this infamous event, this ‘trade’ continued of capturing Africans from Africa and bringing them to the colonies of Britain. The usage of slaves increased and were often used as field laborers on plantations, house workers, blacksmiths

There are many types of slavery. The most common for the 1800s is forced labor, which in the 1800s, was longterm, no pay, bad conditions. Forced labor is physical, forcing them to work for hours on end, and beaten into submission. There is also forced marriage, sex trafficking, and child labor, the most cruel. Slaves under 18 take up 30% of the whole slave population, and is involved with every single type of slavery.

Slavery was a dark time in America’s past. Not only did slavery separate millions of families, it destroyed the white man’s reputation to African people. Many slave owners treated their slaves well, many did not. They forced their slaves to live in deplorable conditions. Malnutrition and overworking often led to death. If you were a slave, would you risk it all and try to run away? You might not have a choice if you wanted to stay alive.

Young children had to start working at the age of six, women were raped and could not do anything about it, and slaves most of the time wore raggedy and rough clothes which were uncomfortable while

Slaves were not well cared for. They received the bare minimum for food, clothing, and sleeping arrangements. For example, where Frederick Douglass was a slave: “The men and woman slaves received, as

Slaves were used to do chores around the house, watch children, as well as clean and cook. At this time most of the slaves weren’t native rather they were from West Africa. Since the slaves were from a different part of the world and had a much different lifestyle (culture) than the Americans did, white people always made sure to keep a close eye on the slaves, almost as if they were afraid of their own black slaves, matter of fact they probably were. The whites seemed to be so afraid of them that they put bans on West African cultural practices, such as night burials, group gatherings, and the purchase of

No one should have to endure a beating like the slaves

People would offer themselves up to work the land and do other miscellaneous work in exchange for a passage to America. Although it is generally believed that indentured servants, as a whole, were treated better and more fairly than slaves, that is not completely true. Some indentured servants were treated kindly by their “owners”, while others were physically abused and had no rights in the eyes of whoever had control over them. Just like regular slaves, these servants were treated like property and were passed down through the family. If the primary owner of a servant died while they still had time to serve, then they were passed on to someone else in their family to allow them to finish their sentence. Frequently, indentured servants were beaten so badly that they would die, in which the master beating them would face little to no

Slavery was very common around the 1700’s. Slavery is when others (masters) people into their fields to work, even if they didn't want to. From infants to adults, masters took whoever they felt like keeping under their control. A master is the person who owns the slaves, they are the ones to decide how the slaves will be treated and what they will be doing on the plantations. To be a slave means that you don’t have any freedom what so ever, and you are controlled by another person.

A slave up to this point in history was considered to be unfortunate and not inferior. In the ancient world,

The population of slaves increased from over 20,000 slaves in 1700 to over 400,000 slaves in 1770, bringing the percentage of African Americans from 20 percent to 40 percent (pg 117). This tremendous increase was due to natural increase, or reproduction of the

Planters also used the three-fifths clause to not only “degrade Negroes in theory, but in practice disenfranchise the South” (33). The three-fifths clause is the way slaves were counted as citizens; White people did not want to count them as whole citizens because they did not want them to have the rights a White citizen had. Being granted the same rights as White citizens meant that these Black slaves could be free. Instead, they decided to count them as three-fifths of a citizen, which would be counted when choosing how many seats were in the House. In Virginia and South Carolina, House seats were decided based on land and population which allowed a vast amount of power to lie with the planters. Planters used the slaves that worked for free and the land they worked on in order to keep slavery in place. Slaves were being used as a political tool, and it was not in their favor. Rather, it was to keep them working for free and against their will. There was no tangible way for slaves to escape their status as slaves unless they joined the capitalist system, which would be difficult because the political system was working against them.

Despite the horror of the word slavery we have to admit that slaves have played a big role in rising big empires. For example the Egyptians used slaves to build their majestic pyramids, the Chinese and Indian used slaves for large-scale construction and agricultural and the Hebrews also used slaves. Slaves were brought from Africa to the British American colonies to work in agriculture and farming, which among other factors made the British colonies in America become so strong and prosperous.

The United States, Africa, the Middle East and mostly all of the countries around the world have been known to in some shape or form to inhabit slaves and to engage in the business of slave trading. According to the text, in 1619 there were a small group of people, 32 to be exact that reached the shores of America in the Chesapeake (D. Hine, W. Hine and Harrold, 55). It has been long believed that this was the first group of African Americans in British North America; apart of a group who was taken from their home in Angola. Unfortunately during this time, it became apparent that the slaves and those of African descent would be apart of “chattel slavery,” a term coined by the British in the Chesapeake in reference to the enslaved being treated equally to that of the livestock and thus legally treated as property (57). Though the Emancipation Proclamation wouldn’t be a key event until 1863 that would ultimately “free the slaves,” there was a revolt thousands of years earlier by slaves that would lay the ground work for those like them in the future.