Slavery In Indian Country: Article Analysis

Narratives about captivity have often intrigued readers in Western culture. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano’s stories helped pave the way for stereotypes within both European and white culture; teaching Europeans to see Native Americans as cruel and allowing whites to see the evil in the American slave market. In both “A Narrative of the Captivity” and “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,” Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano share their individual stories of being kidnapped and enslaved. Though the two narrators share similarities in their personal accounts of being held captive, either individual’s reaction sheds light on the true purpose of both Rowlandson and Equiano’s writing.

Many people dream of being able to live the American Dream and sadly, many people fall in the wrong hands and get cheated on a fake American dream. Although, America is always advertised as “The Land of the Free” slavery is still going on and no one seems to be aware of it or concerned about it. Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter talk about slavery in The United States, in their article, Slavery In The Land of the Free. In this article, Bales and Soodalter talk about how slavery is still happening in the country, but in many different ways. Bales and Soodalter use stories, statics, and comparisons of every slavery case there is in America. However, most of the stories they told were about Hispanics being in slaved, and did not really include stories of other races

Slavery was created in pre-revolutionary America at the start of the seventeenth century. By the time of the Revolution, slavery had undergone drastic changes and was nothing at all what it was like when it was started. In fact the beginning of slavery did not even start with the enslavement of African Americans. Not only did the people who were enslaved change, but the treatment of slaves and the culture that each generation lived in, changed as well.

In the essay "The Evolution of Slavery in Colonial America," author Jon Butler examines the growth of the slave practice in the land which would become the United States. As the European nations began exploring North America, they overtook the native populations of the areas and turned them into unpaid laborers. However, these people were not enough to supply landholders with sufficient aid. To make up the necessary numbers, plantation owners utilized indentured servants and then a number of slaves imported from Africa. Indentured servants were people who would be taken from the Old World to the New in order to start a new life. However, since they would not have the necessary funds to pay for their transportation, their journey would be funded by either a manufacturer or a plantation owner and their debt would be paid off by working for their benefactor. Slaves were not given this opportunity. These were people who were taken from their homes and families and forced into labor by threat of violence or death. This practice did not begin in the United States, but America was still allowing slavery well into the 19th century, long after other nations had come to the conclusion that slavery was inhumane and brutal.

Through our current world, we are able to see how our ancestors were able to shape the world we live in today. From where state lines are drawn to the political views of that state to finally the culture of each state, can be drawn back to one issue. An issue that is still showing it face, but in a different form, today. That is the topic of slavery. The issue of slavery is an issue that shaped the development of the United States, and is the cause of the political unrest we can see in our everyday lives. Slavery has shaped the development of the American Republic by establishing clear political boundaries for each state,

“Slavery,” this word evokes images of West Africans picking cotton in the Southern United States or a kneeling man in chains asking, ”Am I not a man and brother.” These conventional ideas of slavery dominate both the public perception of enslavement and scholarship. However, a new voice entered the examination of slavery: Andrés Reséndez. In The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America, Reséndez challenges the conventional definition of slavery. Reséndez presents a systemic study of Indian slavery through the impact of enslavement on the decimation of Native American tribes, the complex relationships racial between Native American tribes as well as the Spanish, and the continued implications of Indian enslavement

Looking throughout the overwhelming events the American Revolution had on everyone involved, allows us to examine how the governments’ policies toward the Indians changed over time. It shows how the policy changes effected the Indians as well as the Americans’, their attitudes toward each other as the American’s pushed westward and the Indians resisted. Then the actions on both sides which lead up to the final removal of all Indians to west of the Mississippi in 1830’s.

During the period of 1830-1860 slavery existed throughout the United States. The topic of slavery has a long history in the United States, beginning with the slaves used to cultivate tobacco in the southern colonies. When writing the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers realized they could not include any articles against slavery, for it would lead to the South not agreeing upon it. In the 1830’s to 1860’s, attitudes towards the institution of slavery varied throughout social classes and regions, ultimately settling with the North coming out against the expansion of slavery and the South for it.

The years 1820s through 1840s saw slavery develop and advance in various ways. However, with the advancement of slavery came reformists whose efforts were faced with a number of challenges. The primary objective of this essay is to take a stand on slavery. The essayist will focuss on a number of questions. These include: What stereotypes do these documents promote about African-Americans? How do these men justify slavery? Or what points do they make about the need to abolish slavery? Should the emancipated slaves remain "on-soil," that is, in the United States? How do these men envision civilized society and slavery's place in it? What remarks do the abolitionists make about the conditions under which the slaves worked and lived? The pro-slavery

If you were born in the 1860’s would you’ve owned slaves? Chances are you probably would have. If you owned slaves you probably treated them like objects that you owned and who have no rights. Slave owners barely fed slaves and they were treated poorly. When slaves were freed they didn't have equal rights, Not only were slaves not equal in society, but they also had to have church apart from whites as well as other public areas were segregated.

Slavery and its effects evidently led to the civil war. There was debate in the 1800s over various slave states and slaves benefiting economy. Slavery was beneficial to some, but others thought it was morally wrong. Although slavery benefited the South, the effects on politics, economics and morality caused the civil war as evidenced by historical documents such as lectures and letters from well rounded individuals in the 1800s.

The main thesis of The Unredeemed Captive by John Demos is that for some Puritan women in Early America, such as Eunice Williams, living in “captivity” among Kahnawake Indians was preferable to living with their family where they were severely limited by their gender. In this book John Demos examines the Indian way of life in comparison to that of the New Englanders. It is a story about the meeting of three cultures: the Catholic French, the Puritan English, and the Native Americans.

The land of the freedom for new settlers from England and Europe was for many seen as an opportunity to open new frontiers of prosperity, and land to own. The strong clash of culture, customs, religion and language was without a doubt a challenge not only for new settlers, but also for natives Americas in how to live from then on. English colonial women faced also this challenge when some of the women were abducted by Natives Americans and some of them decided to stay, due to the lack of rights, husband’s oppression, illiteracy, the inequality of jobs and gender roles.

“The Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and were put into the harshest, fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the field” (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de las Casas).

The captivity narrative and the slave narrative are two types of literary works, which were very common during the 17th and the 18th century. The captivity narrative usually involves an innocent white woman who is taken captive by an Indian tribe, who the woman describes as savages in most of the cases. On the other hand, the slave narrative focuses on the quality of life that slaves were facing before the time of the abolishment of slavery. Although the captivity narrative and the slave narrative show some similarities, they are completely different. We can observe the differences by analyzing two literary works, A Narrative of The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson and From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African, Written by Himself by Olaudah Equiano. A Narrative of The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a narrative written by Mary Rowlandson herself, which sheds light on her own experiences revolving captivity. The Interesting Narrative of The Life of Olaudah Equiano gives the reader insight into the life of a slave, the treatments they endure, and usually their freedom, whether it be through escaping or other means. Both narratives usually include real-life accounts, however, the differences lie in the structure of the narrative, the purpose that the narrative is trying to lay out and the treatment of the parties who are living these experiences.