Human Rights Dbq

In the 1800s, slavery in the South was common. African Americans were treated so horribly that they got whipped and beaten as a punishment. They were even allowed to have basic human rights. Basic human rights include having the right to have freedom and control of yourself. For example, in Document 1: A Speech by Frederick Douglas (1850), it says "The law gives the master absolute power over the slave." Another example to show how slaves were denied their basic human rights is being treated as a commodity. In Document 2: Auction Advertisement (1860), it shows a flyer about a sale of land, negroes, corn, and other property. The slaves were treated so badly that they were willing to kill themselves than be a slave. In Document 4:

They also could make double the money if they had slaves working for them that they didn't have to pay. Slaveholders split up families and treated them like they were not human. In Document 7: Keeping Slave Families Together, it's says that about 40% of the reason why families were broken up was by master's choice. It also says that about 50% of the reason why families were broken up was by death. They denied slaves their basic human rights because they thought that God had made African Americans have a darker skin color for a reason. In Document 6: A Speech Defending Slavery, it says "Until the "African can change his skin," it will be useless to try by any human power, to make free men of those God has doomed to be slaves...." They didn't want to free the slaves because the American crop sales would go down 50% because there wouldn't be slaves to plant and harvest them. For example, in Document 6: A Speech Defending Slavery, it says " ...if all the slaves in these states were freed , the American crop would be reduced the very next year from 1,200,000 to 600,000 bales." The slaveholders also denied them basic human rights to show the slaves that they are not human and whipped them to show them that they are in