Marialaina Carter
Dr. Sinegal-Decuir
Slavery and Servitude World History
March 15, 2015
The One In Front of the Gun
According to the Webster dictionary, a warrior is “a person who fights in battles and is
known for having courage and skills.” Skill is attained through the repetitious performance of a particular act that can be further developed by means of an apprenticeship or cognitive reading. When the word warrior is merged with child, many humanitarian and educational boundaries are crossed because an adolescent’s mental and physical capacity, by no means, are suitable for the acquisition of the intense psychological and physical skills required for armed defense. A weapon has the power of severing a human to the point of his
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As a result of the extreme upbringing within the realm of combat, child soldiers tend to “fall within the messy, ambiguous, paradoxical zones of all three: [extreme victims, extreme perpetrators, and extreme heroes]” (Denov 2).
A child is an extreme victim because one day he or she may be sharing a meal with his or her family and the next day becomes branded by the emblem of guerrilla warfare. He or she is a perpetrator because, once the child is handed the gun and learns how to use it, the power rests in his or her hands. And, finally, the child is a hero fighting for a cause that is mostly likely incomprehensible to his or her developing intellect and is ready to die for the sake of its duration and influence. All three of these positions can be wrapped into a sphere of extremity because there is always one goal emphasized through a glorified, tunnel vision: to kill or be killed. Most concisely, a child soldier can be defined as a slave because he or she, upon initiation, has offered to the recruiter an oath of obedience and, unknowingly and without will, the opportunity for the recruiter to manipulate his or her mind under a system of pure, unyielding weaponry. As a form of modern slavery, the forced recruitment of child soldiers is congruent with the notion that slaves are considered property. An armed child is only a free pawn in the war for the rise of some political message. For
For over 2,000 years, slavery has been conducted in various parts of the world. From year 1500 to year 1900, Europeans stole individuals from West Africa, West Central Africa, and Southeast Africa and shipped them to the different parts of the Atlantic. This process dehumanized them of their identity. Europeans stole husbands, wives, merchants, blacksmiths, farmers, and even children. They removed them from their homelands and gave them new names: slaves. European slaveholders never thought to take ownership of their actions by killing humans with brutality and degradation. Slave trade was considered popular in England and soon after more countries began the process of taking slaves to newly claimed territories. These countries include
Slavery dates back to the seventeenth century, when they were brought by ship from Africa to America. Plantation owners has indentured servants from Europe, who was serving time for their actions, and slaves from Africa. There was a prevalent development of degrading treatment towards African slaves and the institution of slavery as a whole in the time period of 1607- 1750 in Virginia which can be seen by slaves getting taken advantage of, children being taken away or runaway ads and also not receiving the same basic human rights as other individuals .
Many people who read the poem Beowulf would probably find it hard to find similarities between the poem and life in modern America. How could one compare an ancient Anglo-Saxon culture with the sophisticated world that we are living in today? But, if we look closely, we may be able to pinpoint some parallel between the two societies. This essay will discuss the topics of warrior life, the “bad guy,” and social similarities. One might wonder how a warrior culture might be similar to our own? But if we consider American culture, we are actually still very war-like. We have a strong military system built to protect our country and the people that make it up. We are also known for going to the aid of other
Throughout American history slave has resist their master, the system and the idea of slavery. These resistance has became of a key stone in the history of slavery. To understand what these resistance is, we will look at incident of the past to analyze how slave in the past resisted their master, the system and the idea of slavery.
In this assignment I will be taking a further look into the history of slavery. When thinking of slavery the immediate thought that comes to mind is all the negative aspects of the system. Prior to this research, I was unaware of slave systems that were not based on the long labor hours and the torture of slaves. Granted, there were still forms of slavery that practiced these brutal rituals, where slaves were treated as animals and were malnourished. One prime example of this, is the book titled “Am I Not A Woman And A Sister”, looks at the history of a Bermudan slave named Mary Prince. Another example of slavery that will be incorporated in this paper will come from a source about a woman slave named Semsigul, born in Caucasus an area that
Slavery has a lot of effects on African Americans today. History of slavery is marked for civil rights. Indeed, slavery began with civilization. With farming’s development, war could be taken as slavery. Slavery that lives in Western go back 10,000 years to Mesopotamia. Today, most of them move to Iraq, where a male slave had to focus on cultivation. Female slaves were as sexual services for white people also their masters at that time, having freedom only when their masters died.
For a medieval warrior to be worthy of a place in an epic story, several characteristics were essential for consideration. Just like any hero, the most prominent of traits is the display of immense
You watch children your age, no more than nine years old, being shot by the enemy. You must grow up and learn the ways of battle or die. In many scenarios, both recent and past, many of the inhabitants of this earth have undergone a life-altering event that changed their core values and beliefs. Both
Human beings have been in bondage for thousands of years. Slavery originated in early civilizations. It has not only affected our modern world, it has affected the advancement of the human being itself. In most civilizations, humans establish class systems and look upon other humans as if they are “lesser than” or “subhuman”. The process of dehumanization is a key psychological factor in why slavery has existed since the formation of civilizations.
Since they are forced to leave their homes, kids miss out on getting an education, spending time with family, making friends, and enjoying peaceful, carefree lives. Being recruited into war changes their childhood forever. They live in fear of getting killed or harmed, and have to murder other people themselves. If they don’t, they risk getting shot or abused by commanders. An article on hrw.org (2004) states that many children are “victims of killings, rape and sexual assault, abduction, torture, forced labor and displacement at the hands of the warring factions.” This reveals that when children are forced into war, they no longer get to enjoy the fun and simple childhood everyone deserves. Rather, they must live up to adult responsibilities and perform abhorrent crimes. In addition, these children are often given many drugs to make them more inclined to kill. An article on vision.org (2008) talks about a child soldier rehabilitation camp director that has reported that kids “would do just about anything that was ordered” while on drugs. The use of drugs in young people dangerously affects their overall health and alters their minds substantially. Also, Child Soldiers International notes that child soldiers “run a high risk of being killed or maimed.” This clearly describes the health and future of these children as they are forced into war. As can be seen, recruiting kids into war negatively affects their physical state and their
They studied literature and writing, in order to be able to write stories and poems about their experiences (Document C). They also trained with fake or wooden weapons, to hone their battle instincts and skills. They swore oaths to defend their masters, and upon their ever so important honor, they did exactly so (Document E). This honor was the key to life, and to dishonor someone essentially ruined the warrior for life.
The book The Warrior Ethos, by Steven Pressfield depicts the warrior’s mentality from ancient times to the present through a variety of different aspects and stories. In The Warrior Ethos, Pressfield states that men are not born with the certain qualities that make a good warrior, but instead are inculcated through years of training and indoctrination, stating at an early age. He goes on to show how different societies have been able to instill the same or very similar ideals throughout history while maintaining their own unique characteristics. Things have changed from ancient Sparta where parents would be enthusiastic about their children going to war, and even more elated
A typical warrior is a man in medieval knight in shining armor fighting for his life and homeland. Today, the definition of what it means to be a warrior has become ambiguous. Often, we view those willing to sacrifice their lives for others--such as soldiers, police officers, or firefighters--as warriors. Even expanded in this way, the warrior still connotes physical bravery, masculine strength, and daring. However, this concept of warrior can have an entirely new meaning when we use it in a literary context.
“Compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults” (“Child Soldiers” 1). This quotation by Olara Otunnu explains that children are forced into becoming weapons of war. Children under 18 years old are being recruited into the army because of poverty issues, multiple economic problems, and the qualities of children, however, many organizations are trying to implement ways to stop the human rights violation.
The history of the slave trade is one that most people would want to forget. Though, forgetting such an important era in the history of the world is not only wrong but a recipe for repeating other such mistakes. According to Capone (2007), more than 11 million Africans were taken to the New World in the period between the 16th and mid-19th centuries. More than any other colony in the Americas: Brazil received the largest portion of the slaves. The Brazilian coastline was especially a major hosting ground for the new Africans who were arriving from the western African states including Bight of Benin, Senegambia, Bight of Biafra, as well as other regions in West Central Africa. The huge number of Africans would over the years dominate the