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Indentured Servitude Essay

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The idea of slavery is naturally associated with race. People automatically categorize slaves and slave masters as either black or white. Though slavery did exist millions of years ago, slaves never belong or correspond to a specific race or culture. Before slavery in America became of racial servitude, land and property owners used indentured slaves to meet their economic needs, without spending a fortune. The reason that the indentured servitude system was ineffective was because after the indentured slaves serve their specified time they were obliged to be free. Many landowners also felt threatened by newly freed servants demand for land. The colonial elite realized the problems of indentured servitude and decided to find an alternative …show more content…

Because society deems it so? … It is a fact, it is a plain fact that what is true and right is true and right for all. White and black alike.” It was difficult for white individuals to accept blacks as their equal. Many whites believed their black counterparts to be intellectually inferior. Regardless of this statement, whites refused to permit blacks the right of an education. The slave master's primary fear was permitting slaves to read and write, thus, leading slaves to communicate plans for rebellion. Therefore, slave masters justified their actions by correlating blacks to children and indicating that slaves are “Our children who need to be cared for and disciplined. They are content and are actually better off than free white laborers working in northern factories.” Masters used the concept of paternalism in order to justify their relationship with their slaves. Some even used specific excerpts of the bible to prove to the slaves that god required them to follow the lord (their master) and treat them with respect. Racial servitude stripped slaves of their identity. Slaves were only looked at as “help” and nothing more. Some were even denied the right to keep their

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It is evident that all these people generally conformed to the common action of whipping the minorities as it stimulated the sense of being dominant. Knowing that whipping was a frequented and justified action, it implies that many desired for control and authority. Additionally, brainwashing the minorities was a common method for obtaining dominance which Douglass clarifies, “If they have anything to say of their masters, it is generally in their masters’ favor... I have been frequently asked, when a slave, if I had a kind master, and do not remember ever to have given a negative answer” (Douglass 16). It is visible that the slaveholders had brainwashed the slaves to only express what they prefer to hear from the lower class.

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Keeping slaves ignorant was a way that slave holders kept slaves submissive. If you have a person who isn’t knowledgable and posses understanding, then it makes them to be dependent on another person. In the text written by Fredrick Douglass, he explanins it felt to once had the opporunity to learn how to read and then have that right taken away from him. He was first taught by the wife of the slave owner, when he was about seven years old.

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234 Words | 1 Pages

The narrative by Frederick Douglass titled, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, indicates how whites controlled their slaves, by preventing them how to read and write. I believe that this was the main theme that Douglass wanted to let readers know; the cruelty the whites had against all the slaves. The slave owners prevented the young slaves to learn how to read and write because they did not want any slave writing about their slave life. They controlled slaves by trying to keep them away from gaining knowledge like knowing their birthday, where they came from, or who their parents were. While reading stories like Frederick Douglass’ narrative I start picturing the lives of slaves

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767 Words | 4 Pages

In 1617 is when slavery started, a number of unemployed men ran around England committing crimes. The unemployed men signed an indenture which gave up their freedom. They could be bought, sold, and had to do whatever the owner asked . Slavery and freedom go hand in hand, people have been fighting for their freedom the minute they became slaves. Race became a concept when the English settlers first met the Native Americans, race became connected to freedom and slavery the minute Africans were illegally brought in and

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734 Words | 3 Pages

Slaves were raised to be disconnected from the world as just an object owned without judgement. “Though separated from the rest of the world;” (Frederick Douglass, 32). They were isolated with no knowledge of the earth or knowledge of their background. Slaveholders had a way of making themselves the only judges who claimed that their actions were correct. In the mind of a slave owner was to keep slaves uneducated for they might overachieve the knowledge and seek revenge.

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338 Words | 2 Pages

Early in American History, white people in the south thought that they were superior to black people. Until the late 1800’s black people were controlled by slavery. In Slavery, slaves weren’t given any freedom, they lived in fear/despair, and they weren’t allowed to live an ordinary life. Slaves did not have any rights, they felt like they were prisoners. According to the Ebook, Who Traveled on the Underground Railroad, slaves weren’t granted the right to learn, so they almost never knew how to read or write.

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115 Words | 1 Pages

Douglass’s Narrative writings show us that the masters ignore their slaves, and keep them ignorant and uneducated. They wanted their slaves to know that the slaves were born as slaves, and there was no way out to get rid of being a slave. The masters of the slaves wanted their slaves to accept and know that slavery was natural. The slaveholders did not want their slaves to write and read because if they knew to write and read, the slavery might have been ended after a while. Another point was to control over the slaves by leaving them ignorant.

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457 Words | 2 Pages

Europeans in the times of the slave trade from time to time vindicated enslavement of Africans by indicating that slavery by that time occurred on that continent. African communities established many forms of slavery and confinement that mixed from a kind of labor position to something that is more like slavery in which human beings are measured as things. Slavery has been around since the beginning of time. The intentions of slavery is mainly financial, slaves were affordable and non- essential. They were often shipped form poverty- stricken areas with an outstanding source of labor at a low price.

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1026 Words | 5 Pages

During the 1800s slaves comprised most of the economy in the Southern part of the United States, forcefully taken from their countries to serve as tools in the homes of others, and deprived of education and knowledge of their lives. Because of the free labor provided, many disagreed with the abolishment of slavery and argued to keep slavery in the system. Mr. Auld, a slave master states, “A slave should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do.” This quote gives an example of the cruelty slaves were forced to tolerate, and how they were brainwashed to follow every command like a dog to his wretched owner. In the Narrative of a Life of Fredrick Douglass, Douglass was forced to endure the cruel commands of his master, while

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Slaves are considered valuable assets, and nothing more than property. Many slaves worked on plantations; the slave owners would usually treat them poorly. They were given little to eat, worked to the bone, and beaten. Slaves could be beaten just because their master had a difficult day, wanted entertainment, or for no reason at all. For slave owners, slaves were a lesser race.

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387 Words | 2 Pages

During the early to mid eighteen hundreds, Britain, and subsequently, the British Empire underwent a change of attitudes towards slavery. Beginning in the 1807 when Britain outlawed slavery, the development of indentured servitude occurred. Following this, African slaves who were freed, nevertheless, the grueling plantation work still needed people to till the fields and harvest the crops. Indentured servitude of Indians was an, as of yet, mostly untapped resource. The largely illiterate Indian populace, not knowing the agreements in which they were signing, were forced into similar roles and conditions as the recently freed Africans.

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1561 Words | 7 Pages

But, around this time the elites realized that the African and European slaves would rebel against those who were higher up. This rebellion caused the Elite to “teach whites the value of whiteness” which divided power by race and started the inequality in race we have in The United States today. From then on laws were put in place to punish blacks like taking away their rights to own property, guns, and access to white women. The transition forced blacks to lose more and more power, they could not learn to read, write, or get a skilled job. Soon, whiteness itself was considered an advantage to make landless whites feel more inclined to treat blacks as lessers.

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565 Words | 3 Pages

When slavery was legal in the United States, many people did not know how cruelly the slaves were treated in the south. This changed when writers like Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, wrote about how they were treated. Frederick wrote about his time as a slave in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. [something about slave owners power] The slave owners’ methods of maintaining power over their slaves were to disgust them with freedom, the violence that they were constantly exposed to, and their lack of education.

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204 Words | 1 Pages

"12 Years a Slave" is a movie based on a true story about a man named Solomon Northup. He was a successful man with a wife and two children, until he got kidnapped and sold as a slave. In the beginning you see him get beat brutally when he denies that he is a slave. He get sold to a man how later sells him to a plantation owner named Mr Ford. Mr Ford shows kindness to him, but is forced to sell him to a brutal plantation owner to pick cotton.

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1594 Words | 7 Pages

Slavery was an issue that was never addressed and needed to be. It was a huge, controversial subject in the past, affecting the blacks, as well as the people of the North and South due to their strong beliefs and difference in opinion. Slavery was unfair. People were treated poorly and suffered for the southerners who believed they were better than African Americans. Though, we are all equal.

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