Analysis Of 'Negroe Slaves In The Colonies'

The Injustice and ambivalence of slavery are presided in “Negroe Slaves in the Colonies” by William Knox and “Thoughts Upon Slavery” by John Wesley. Both of these sources explain a vivid description and examples of slavery in the fifteenth century. In “Negroe Slaves in the Colonies”, William Knox, makes an accurate depiction of slavery and expresses his view points on the subject matter. Knox starts of by stating that the foreign African slaves are unintelligent and show a lack of effort. This gave the wrong impression to the people of the fifteenth century by objectifying this mass group of people. He explains that people viewed the slaves as “beast’s” and that they are treated as such but he believes that they should still be given salvation. In the third chapter Knox made it clear that he believes slaves should be taught Christianity. One of the biggest arguments that he makes is, what is the “Divine and Human Laws”? This meaning, what constitutes as something morally right or morally wrong. Knox usually gave the both sides of the argument when he is explaining about slaves and shows a since of neutrality in the subject. For example, he explains an alternative to

Throughout Wesley’s argument he proposes multiple examples and how the slaves were being unjustified and showed the immorality of the subject matter. The structure of the passage was mostly questions and answers. He proposed a lot of controversial questions and answered them to what he perceived was correct. A main point that Wesley made was that when you are in war you should kill your enemy but you should never enslave them. Another main point that he makes is that being “wealth is not necessary to the glory of any nation but wisdom, virtue, justice, mercy, generosity, public spirit, love of our country.” He explains slaves can give you wealth which then directly make the country