Quamina Eddoo Analysis

As mentioned earlier, Abina wanted to punish her master, Eddoo for wrongly enslaving her. Abina wasn’t as educated as the important men hearing her case, but she truly believed she was a slave. She expressed herself in her own language which wasn’t clearly understood by the important men of the court. Because she lacked education causing her to contradict, become confused or inaccurately answer the questions, Eddoo’s lawyer and the men began to create a difference between being a slave and acting upon free will like a slave. The magistrate, Mr. Melton, asked Abina if during her stay with Eccoah and Quamina Eddoo, was she “compelled to work against her will.” (Chapter 3, page

The Law code provides a measure of protection for individuals prior to their trial. Person’s bringing suit are prohibited from detaining and seizing the accused before his or hers trial. Violations are punishable by fines, which vary depending on the status of the individual. ‘Whoever intends to bring suit in relation to a free man or slave, shall not take action by seizure before trial; but if he do seize him, let the judge fine him ten staters for the free man, five for the slave and let him release him within three days.’ This extract as we expected emphasises the difference in treatment for the different classes. A man is fined five staters more for taking action before trial on a free man. Slaves were of lower status like everywhere in Ancient Greece. Those that contend he is a free man are believed over those that contend he is a

The authors make a purpose to write about the domestic slave trade in their book. They know what the slave trade was all about, and what happened during it. They explain why the traders want to buy certain slaves, and why they do not want to buy others. The authors also write about what the sellers and buyers would say and look for during the trade. Another area of expertise the authors include in their book is their knowledge of quasi-free slaves. Sally Thomas was considered a “quasi-slave.” She fell into the group of quasi-free slaves that were defined as, “…permitted freedom by their masters but who had not obtained a formal deed of emancipation from the

As mentioned earlier, Abina wanted to punish her master, Eddoo for wrongly enslaving her. Abina wasn’t as educated as the important men hearing her case, but she truly believed she was a slave. She expressed herself in her own language which wasn’t clearly understood by the important men of the court. Because she lacked education causing her to contradict, become confused or inaccurately answer the questions, Eddoo’s lawyer and the men began to create a difference between being a slave and acting upon free will like a slave. The magistrate, Mr. Melton, asked Abina if during her

In the book Celia, A Slave written by Melton A. McLaurin’s was an analysis of the trial and execution of Celia, a slave in Callaway County, Missouri who kills her master and burns his body in her fireplace. The initial argument is that Celia’s case offers important insights into how enslaved women were completely powerless to protect themselves from sexual abuse, and how the moral ambiguity caused by slavery is often reconciled in the courts, whose rulings alleviate white Southerners’ crisis of conscience when confronted with the “hard daily realities of slavery”.

Slavery allows for humans to be treated as objects; the slave is given no rights. This act was

Slave trade had been outlawed in the United States colonies for almost 30 years and in Spain for 19. Feeling something was wrong with the stories surrounding this vessel, Mr. Hollabird ordered a judicial hearing. The call for the hearing was not out of concern for the Africans, but, Mr. Hollabird, as a representative of the law, had to follow legal procedures of an investigation. The matter of murder, piracy, salvage rights and more sent this case to trial, and the Africans were placed in detainment under the custody of the US Marshall. The case appeared before Judge Andrew Judson.

Every man, woman, and child that is born unto this earth is given one thing; free will. Or at least in theory. That is not to say that in every society, there are consequences for actions or that everyone is to be allowed to run rampant doing what they want. But most restrictions today, at least legally, are enforced so as to not infringe on someone else’s right to freedom. In Celia, a Slave, Melton A. McLaurin’s interpretation of events that happened to a young unfortunate slave in the antebellum period, we are shown a glimpse at the frustratingly futile effort fought to give a slave women the right to self-defense against someone who encroached on something that everyone should have the right to have. Melton has written many books that gives insight of life in the south, such as The Knights of Labor in the South, and Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South. His take on this historic trial gives such an honest insight that someone from anywhere else but the south, could not have given.

Starting from a slave’s birth, this cruel process leads to a continuous cycle of abuse, neglect, and inhumane treatment. To some extent, slave holders succeed because they keep most slaves so concerned with survival that they have no time or energy to consider freedom. This is particularly true for plantation slaves where the conditions of slave life are the most difficult and challenging. However, slave holders fail to realize the damage they inadvertently inflict on themselves by upholding slavery and enforcing these austere laws and attitudes.

The limitation of this book is that this book could only dedicate about 10 pages in the slavery in Virginia. Since it covered so much time period, some details were overlooked.

The text also illustrates how difficult it was for slaves to become free. According to law, a slave needed to have papers indicating they were free. Essentially, this was the only way they could

“We are all guilty-we ought all to plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others; and I therefore deprecate every kind of reflection against the various descriptions of people who are more immediately involved in this wretched business,” stated William Wilberforce in his, “Abolition Speech.” William Wilberforce was an English politician and he campaigned for the conclusion of slavery. One of the main aspects of slavery that he focused on was the transportation of slaves in awful conditions. Wilberforce delivered this speech at the House of Commons May 12, 1789. The purpose of this speech was to change the audience's beliefs on the slave reform.

The first definition of slavery appeared as part of a document in the League of Nations Slavery Convention of September 1926. It defined the word as a “status of condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.” The document went on to define the slave trade as “all acts involved in the capture, acquisition or disposal of a person with intent to reduce him to slavery; all acts involved in the acquisition of a slave with a view to selling or exchanging him; all acts of disposal by sale or exchange of a slave acquired with a view to being sold or exchanged, and, in general, every act of trade or transport in slaves” (Weissbrodt and Dottridge, 4).

She suggests that slaves do not develop, or lose, defining characteristics of equal and free human beings (Satz, 2009, p.89). In this way, slavery shapes the kind of people we become. For example, their right to any substantial control over their own body is taken away (Satz, 2009, pp. 102-106) - this could be seen as a fundamental human right. Even Nozick suggests a similar idea, arguing that people must be free to be able to develop capacities as free men (Nozick, 1999, p. 328). As freedom is so important in a libertarian society, it could be argued that a loss of the capacity to act as a free man reduces the individual’s baseline to a ’worse off’ state than before the contract. This loss of free individuals could be argued to be ‘catastrophic’, both for the individual and for society. Satz claims even the strongest libertarian (Nozick may be taken as an example) would not argue the state should enforce a voluntary slavery contract by, for example, imprisoning the slave (Satz, 2009, p. 93). The slave-owner never had the right to diminish the slave’s baseline in this way, therefore, the state cannot enforce the contract between slave and

Classical gender roles make the women behave as if they are second-class citizens, being grateful to be in the presence of a powerful male figure; where in actuality, Fortunata, Trimalchio’s wife, sold her jewelry to finance Trimalchio’s first wine selling business, which is how he made his millions. Without the help and generosity of Fortunata, Trimalchio would, himself, be a second-class citizen who struggles to pay for daily bread, like most of the poor lower-class Romans.