Slaves And Servants Benefits

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Profits of Master During the Seventeenth Century During the 1600’s there were many laws passed regarding slavery. Therefore, today people would think those laws might have been passed for the general good of the society. However, the “Virginia Servant and Slave Laws” were passed to increase the profits that the masters would receive from the labor of their servants and their slaves. Despite their efforts to dominate the slaves, the masters realized that it was becoming more and more difficult to control the slaves. This was due to the fact that slaves and servants had started to voice out the wrong, and not accept the injustice behavior they were encountering. However, with the consequences the slaves and the servants had to face due to the …show more content…

Slaves and servant had begun to revolt against the brutality of their masters by not doing the chores they were ordered to do. For this reason, new laws were assembled to cease the rebellion. Some of those laws included: “Law Makes Killing a Slave Legal” established in 1669 and the “Law Authorizes Force to Suppress Rebellious Slaves, Indians, and Servants,” established in 1672. These laws described if a slave resists his/her master they have a possibility of being killed. This was stated clearly in the description of the 1672 law, “…as it hath beene manifested…that many negroes…are out in rebellion…whome many mischeifs…dangerous...for the prevention…if any nergroe, molatto, Indian slave, or servant for life, runaway...it shall lawful for any person…to take him, upon the resistance…to kill or wound him.” (“Virginia Servant and Slave Laws,” in Handout Set, p. 3) Summarizing the quote, if a slave attempts to runaway and is seen they have a probability of being killed or wounded. The profit here for the master would be that once a slave is killed the master would be satisfied by a “publique” (value of the slave), which is basically the amount of money the slave’s life was worth. Due to all the unfair treatment the slaves gathered enough courage to take a stand against being oppressed any longer, this led to the Stono Rebellion to take action in the eighteenth century. In the rebellion the action that was taken was very gruesome, which was present in the book American Promise, “…twenty slaves attacked a… store, killed…more than twenty white men, women, and children.”(Roark, The American Promise, p. 116) Once the slaves were put to a halt this caused uncertainty between the masters and the slaves inflicting more violence between them to prevent future rebellions. Surprisingly, violence against Africans is still visible today in many ways. An enormous