Slavery was an immense part of living in the United States from the 18th and 19th century. Slaves were seen as property of their masters and treated like animals without rights. In the minds of their masters slaves were seen as creatures that were bought to do their work. Slavery took away basic human rights from the people after they became slaves and slaveholders used punishments, rules and beatings to do this.
Slaves were denied their basic human rights. In Document 1, Frederick Douglass tells the some of the basic human rights denied to slaves. The document states, “He can own nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but what must belong to another.” This means that slaves could no have anything of their own or claim anything. Slaves were treated like animals and were not seen as human beings. This went against the right, “Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. Slaves had nothing else to rely on other than to keep on working. Another way slaves were denied basic human
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Document 3 explains Georgia’s plea for slavery. Georgia wanted slaves to do free labor to help the states’ economy. This shows that some states only saw slaves as people doing free work to benefit their needs. This violates the human right of the right to desirable work, the slaves could not choose where they wanted to work. The chart on Document 7 shows that the master played a crucial role in breaking families. Slaves were broken up from their families to ensure that working is their only priority. Having nothing to love and care for made slaves feel less human. Document 8 shows a picture of a man who was badly whipped. The document states, “Beatings with a whip were a common form of punishment used on slaves.” Beating was a form of punishment used when a slave disobeyed their master. The slave shown in the picture had terrible scars on his back which caused him to be unable to work for two