Full version Justification Of American Slavery

Justification Of American Slavery

This print version free essay Justification Of American Slavery.

Category: American History

Autor: reviewessays 28 February 2011

Words: 2322 | Pages: 10

How can you justify something thatâ€™s incredibly wrong? Our â€œfounding fathersâ€ were face with the same dilemma over 400 years ago when it came to the issue of building up The New World. They wanted create a place where freedom and justice roamed, escaping the lifestyle from which they came. However, our â€œfounding fathersâ€ knew that creating this New World(America) need cheap labor and a way to build up their economy. This lead to the enslavement of the Africans. Although this tyrannic practice was enforced in the Imperialistâ€™s mother countries, they still felt the need to enforced the Indenture Servant system.








Slavery in North America differed significantly from slavery in the rest of the Americas. In the first place, far fewer slaves were brought into what became the United States, only around 500,000 compared to perhaps 12 to 13 million imported into the Caribbean and South and Central America. Most of these imports to North America ended by 1770, moreover, except for a burst of activity by a few southern states after the American Revolution. Secondly, the fact that the English people had little experience with slavery in comparison to the Spanish and Portuguese meant that little historical reference existed for them to draw upon in the early years. Initially, the first slaves in the Virginia colony were looked upon as workers rather than as property, and some of them were treated much like white indenture slaves, the kind in European countries. The enslaved Africans often worked along side the indentured European laborers in the tobacco fields of the Chesapeake region. Nor were the Africans especially valued. It was cheaper in the early years to bring in white laborers from England as indentured servants than to pay for slaves. And most whites looked upon Africans as morally and intellectually inferior, at best.

For complex reasons, the value and presence of enslaved workers from Africa began to grow after 1676 in the Virginia colony. For one thing, white indentured servants could easily run away. They also demanded to be treated like Englishmen, especially in terms of their rations of grog and time-off from labor. Importantly too, the supply of white indentured servants began to decline as more working-class whites found employment back home in British industries, commerce, and shipping. And the increase in the life span of indentured servants in the new world meant that many of them began to live long enough to claim the share of lands promised to those who had labored the full terms of their indenture-usually six years. Enslaved Africans, on the other hand, could not easily blend into the surrounding white population by escaping-and Native Americans were often employed as slave-catchers. Nor could they make demands upon their masters for humane treatment, justice, or land.

As time progressed, slavery in the upper south became less profitable while slavery in the lower south was most prosperous. As a result of The

Revolutionary war, the Chesapeake tobacco economy was almost completely demolished. In South Carolina and Georgia, however, slavery was making their economy most prosperous. By the year 1790, South Carolina and Georgia were the only two states that didnâ€™t abolish slave importations.

In Georgia and South Carolina, at a time where Blacks outnumbered White more than two times the population, slave labor still was an essential part the prosperity of that region.During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries enslaved African Americans in the Upper South mostly raised tobacco. In coastal South Carolina and Georgia, they harvested indigo for dye and grew rice, using agricultural expertise brought with them from Africa. By the 1800s rice, sugar, and cotton became the South's leading cash crops. The patenting of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 made it possible for workers to ginâ€”separate the seeds from the fiberâ€”some 600 to 700 pounds daily, or ten times more cotton than permitted by hand. The Industrial Revolution, centered in Great Britain, quadrupled the demand for cotton, which soon became America's leading export. Planters' acute need for more cotton workers helped expand southern slavery. By the Civil War the South exported more than a million tons of cotton annually to textile manufactories in Great Britain and the North. Short-staple, or upland cotton, dominated the market. An area still called the Black Belt, which stretched across Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, grew some 80 percent of the countyâ€™s crops. Cotton has expanded from Arkansas to Texas, places where African Americans made up almost seventy-five percent of the population.

By the 1800's, more than one out of every ten black person was freed in the Chesapeake region. This came at a time in which most people were disgruntled by the ideal and barbaric practice of what was at the time modern day slavery. The south, however, was still very dependent

on slavery at this time. Although the majority of slaves worked on farms and plantations, they still contributed to the southern economy. The upper south, however, became known as the non-slaveholding south. Politics took a major role on slavery while each sided with the confederate on the unionâ€™s side.

When I was a kid, growing up, I was taught that Abraham Lincoln free the slaves. Thanks to a college education, I have learned that freeing the slaves wasnâ€™t the task on hand at the time of the emancipation proclamation. By the time that slavery was abolished in America, The majority of the states have already unofficially ended slavery, The main purpose of the slave act was to build up the American economy, and many of the regions where plantations flourished had no need for slaves anymore, besides the lower south. And at the time of the Civil war, slaves were allowed to fight, so I see their freedom being given as a constatation prize. There was basically no need for slaves anymore at that time. The emancipation proclamation was a political act, not a humanitarian one.

I feel that slavery , although it happened a long time ago, still plays a major role in the African American lifestyle of the current day. As we can see from politics and whatâ€™s going on in the world today, the northern state seem to be more accepting of new ideas and beliefs while the south continue to dwell in their ignorance. The Set up of the Union and of the Confederate still remains in modern times today. The south still remains one of the most racist locations in America today with many southerners still believing that white are superior towards blacks. I can deduct that slavery in America was not only a means of building our economy, but also a way to ensue the value that blacks are inferior to whites. I feel that modern day blacks do not necessarily suffer the affects of slavery in a physical manor, but rather in a psychological manor, which is the worse of them all. We were brainwashed to believe that we were an inferior race, and although times have change our actions still shows that we believe this lie that was bestowed on us centuries ago. In our community, crime rates are the highest, we sell illegal substances to our own people, and we tend to make fun of people who most resemble a black person, whether itâ€™s making fun of someone of a dark, ebony complexion or making an effort to relax our kinky hair. Everyday the African American community lives with the notion of hating ourselves but loving the wealth of majority, which leads us to compromising ourselves in many ways.

In closing , I recollect on the history of the Indentured Servant system, the justification for it, and I canâ€™t help but become a bit angry at this country at times. America has become one of the most fairest, opportunity driven places with such a ugly history behind it. Slavery built this country. Simple as that. However, can we imagine what this country would of been like if slaves never existed? America is forever in debt to the slaves help the country become the most powerful one in the world so many years ago. Although America has affirmative action programs, ones which most non-minorities oppose, one must not forget what the slaves did for this country.

I know I wonâ€™t.