Slavery In Stephen Oates's The Fires Of Jubilee

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History Paper The book, The Fires of Jubilee written by Stephen Oates talks about the issue of slavery throughout the 1800’s. This book discusses the brutal truths of the slaves’ lives, and the how slavery was viewed at the time. The book is mostly based on one slave in particular named Nathaniel Turner. Born on October 2, 1800, Nat Turner would have a future…This paper will discuss the behavior of Turner versus the typical slave, the Southern white’s views on slavery, why they had perceived slavery in such a way, factors that led to fear of rebellion, the claims that southern white’s suggested to be the causes of the revolt, how valid their claims were and the changes that were the result of the uprising. Turner was a peculiar person from …show more content…

They had this particular view because they had thought it was essential due to the circumstance that they were not at fault for being in this situation, but the Europeans slave traders were to blame for this way of life since they were the first to bring salves to America. They had also defended this point of view by declaring slavery an “economic necessity” (19). They had assumed that they needed to enslave the blacks to sustain their economy because they were maintaining their investments. They compared their population (majority of blacks) to the North’s population (majority of whites) and declared that the reason the North could free their blacks was because of their small percentage of blacks to whites, while the South relied on their large population of blacks to help their large investments of land and harvesting the money crops. White Southerners had claimed that they did not like slavery, and blamed it on the fact that they were in no position to change it. The factors that made the White Southerners fear a slave rebellion were rooted from the slave rebellion that took place in 1790s on the French island of Santo Domingo. The savagery and acts of violence that the whites had heard of had plagued them with the constant suspicions of a slave rebellion occurring in their own state. Once rumors about resistance and war had spread through the New World; after a disorderly act had transpired and killed two whites they had labeled this as a revolt and hung four slaves blaming it on the Santo Domingo