Slavery, while immoral and wrong, played a very important part in the history of the United States. The practice provided a flourishing economy for the southern states as well as the country as a whole. The people who provided the labor in this practice, however, provided something that could be considered just as important as economic development. The slaves provided a unique culture to the United States and an insight to the practice of slavery. This insight was not seen until many years after the Civil War. During the 1920s and 1930s, the government collected first-hand accounts from former slaves into the life of a slave. These accounts showed us how slaves viewed their lives and how they were treated. From the accounts that have read, I have gathered that the slaves viewed themselves as humans yet they also knew that they could not have the basic rights that freed or white people had. These two ideologies show the mindset of the slave along with the envy that the slaves showed towards their white masters. These three ideas are the ideas that I will be discussing in my paper. …show more content…
In several of the slave accounts that I read there were accounts of how families were broken up (6) or of how marriage for slaves was different than marriage of non-slaves (6, 7). The slaves knew that their families being broken up was a bad thing. They realized that the slave owners didn’t care about the slaves or their families (6). Slaves also realized that their weddings were a charade that their masters performed, not a bonding ceremony like a wedding should be (6, 7). Slaves knew that their lives weren’t being lived to their full potential. They realized that they were not being treated the way they deserved. They realized that they were not being given the basic rights that every other human