Slavery Is A Horrible And Ancient Practice That Still Exists Today

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.

Researchers found that more than ten thousand people are in forced labor across 90 US cities. These people are forced to work in sweatshops, clean homes, work on farms, or work as prostitutes or strippers. Many of these cases are accumulated in areas with large immigrant populations, like California, New York, and Florida. Most of the victims of forced labor are “imported” from 38 different countries. China, Mexico, and Vietnam top this list of countries (Gilmore 1).

Slavery has existed for eons in human history, as we can trace slavery back to Babylonian times. The African Blacks were definitely not the first to be enslaved. However, it seems as if they were indeed treated the worst by their white masters than had any slaves before them been treated. The stories of the horrendous treatment endured by many slaves for the simple wish to be free are horrendous and heartbreaking. I believe there is no person better qualified to inform the world of the horrors of slavery, and to stand behind the idea of abolition, besides a former slave. This man was able to rise above every adversity thrown at him, he taught himself how to read, he observed everything going on around him, and learned from those experiences.

What is slavery? Slavery is forced labor and this forced labor is what built America and made them become more developed. “Africans peoples were captured and transported to the Americas to work. Most European colonial economies in the Americas from the 16th century through the 19th were dependant on enslaved African labor for their survival.” Many claim that enslavement was very necessary in order for America to thrive and not die off for it is now one of the best countries in the world. However, slavery was not necessary in the Americas it was just a mechanism that just stripped Africans of their human rights, giving the slave masters the “right” to abuse them. Slavery was not necessary in the Americas because without slavery America would

“It is important to keep the memory of the victims, to consider that what happened is a part of the history of human being, not only history of Africans or blacks or whites.” Eloi Coly

Virgina has differences and similarities when it comes to slave narratives. To explain further, this is why the details and experiences that these ex-slaves gave in describing the institution of slavery and the practice of slavery are tremendously important because Virginia became a royal colony, the first in English history. However, the English kings were occupied with affairs at home, the Virginia house of burgesses was able to continue its functions and won formal recognition in the late 1630s. Thus, representative government under royal domain was assured. By 1641, when Sir William Berkeley became governor, the colony was well established and extended on both sides of the James up to its falls.

Most people in the United States would agree that slavery was abolished when the thirteenth amendment was passed in 1865. These people are completely unaware that every year there is an estimated 800,000 people world wide, and 14,500- 17,500 people in America alone that are trafficked into slavery every single year. It is unbelievable that in a world that has come so far, that something so horrible can still be going on. One might ask themselves: What could be a reason that such a horrible thing could be happening all around us? It is hard to believe that with all of the technologies and intelligence that the world withholds, that it would be possible for this many people to disappear every single year. (Rome)

Most people understand that slavery was a terrible thing, but most might not fully understand the struggles that free colored men and women endured as well. While slavery was legal, free men would often be kidnapped and forced into slavery, and sometimes slaves actually escape to freedom. If an African American was considered a free man, he or she had to get official documentations stating so. Even after the documents were given to them, some of them still found themselves as slaves. There are many different stories about slavery, but just because a slave escapes from slavery, does not mean he or she is free from a slave’s mindset. Although they were in different positions in life, slaves and free African Americans experienced the same hardships, fears, and daily struggles.

A) I believe slavery should not be legal because people should stop being lazy, make money they deserve and not own people.*

In the mid 1800’s the use of slavery was growing really fast in North America. Most of the use of slavery was much more focused in the South than in the Northern part of the U.S. While cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, rice and sugar were highly produced and very popular in the South, slavery was still a number one priority. From 1820 to 1860 the population of the slaves drastically climbed from 1.5 million to almost 4 million. In 1845 James Henry Hammond who was a South Carolina planter and politician, wrote a letter to an English Abolitionist to show his opinions on what slavery really meant to him. In this letter he stated that the use of slavery was not a bad thing, he even mentioned translations from the Holy Bible and the Holy Scriptures. For example, he mentioned in the Holy Bible Leviticus Chapter twenty-five that says, you cannot deny that a “BONDMAN FOREVER” is a “SLAVE”; yet you endeavor to hang an argument of immortal consequence upon the wretched subterfuge, that the precise word “slave” is not to be found in the translation of the Bible. This example was used to help show how he used both Holy Scriptures and the Bible to help backup his statement on his own opinions toward slavery. In Chapter 13 The Slave South, there were 5 documents, they were titled Madison Heming’s Recalls life as Thomas Jefferson’s Enslaved Son, The Plantation Rules, Fanny Kemble Learns about Abuses of Slave Women, Nat Turner Explains Why He Became an Insurrectionist and lastly the

My topic was a very unique one, for it has an important meaning to history. I chose this particular one, first, because it falls under the NHD theme, and second was the amount of empathy I felt with my topic. I had already knew who Thurgood Marshall was, but I didn’t know a lot about him. My curiosity to research more on him, pushed me to do this topic. This subject was important to select, for he was a civil rights activist, Supreme Court Justice, and he changed U.S. laws that discriminated against colored people.

While examining corrections in the south prior to the civil war through my reading of the fourth module, I noted that most southern states did not have penitentiaires prior to the civil war. Those that did exist were “few and far between.” This lead me to question the exact reasonings and purposes for the incorperation of the penitentiary system in the south. Was it to find another way to inslave “freed” African Americans which, in a way, created this new technique of a penal labor system, convict leasing, as mentioned in Worse Than Slavery?

“The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible.” - OSCAR WILDE, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Even though the slavery was introduced in the early 1600s, it had no doubt that the abolitionist inaugurated the movements about the slavery actively from early 1850s. The slavery became the essential part of industry in the South more than in the North because of the large plantations and slave trades. So in the Southerners’ perspective, the slave flourished the businesses with their inexpensive labor forces in order to profit; they argued slaves were by and large a culturally inferior, child-like people who were treated well by whites and thus content with their status in life. However, Uncle Tom’s Cabin described the slavery as an evil institution that must be abolished accurately from the historians today.

It’s common knowledge that slavery was made illegal in the United States by the 13th amendment to the constitution, in 1865. However, it is less widely known that the 13th amendment still allows slavery as a punishment for crime. If a person commits an illegal act, it is perfectly constitutional to enslave them. This forced labor is one of the most profitable industries to the United States. The blatant exploitation of prisoners by the U.S. government must be put to an end.