Justifications for SlaveryEssay title: Justifications for SlaveryJustifications for SlaveryGod, in the Bible permits the owning of slaves and gives specific instructions for purchasing a slave (Exodus 21:1-4). According to the bible, humanity is allowed to own slaves. This provided the backbone for the popular conception of a racial-based slave system. In addition, the success of tobacco planting led to African Slavery being legalized in Virginia and Maryland. This became the foundation of the Southern agrarian economy. Although the number of African American slaves grew slowly at first, by the 1680s they had become essential to the economy of Virginia. Slavery proved to be a valuable principle for a demanding economy. Production rates increased, the price of labor was at an all time low, and profits were gradually growing. As time progresses, more and more men are abusing the privileges of slavery. This racial-based slave system was increasingly vulnerable to being exploited. Thomas Jefferson, William John Grayson, John Wesley, and Richard Watson were a few of many prominent slaveholders, whom, proven through various publishing, were defenders of slavery. False statements regarding African Americans ability to comprehend: bonds of family and friendship, mathematics, literature, and Art were stated in attempt to justify the restrictions, inhumane conditions, and irresponsibility implicated upon them. Through Frederick Douglass and his Publication of Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, he contributed to the raise of the undeniable truth regarding an African Americans potential to learn, read, write, think, and create on a higher level.
Jeffersons Notes on the State of Virginia poses Jeffersons observations and prejudices about the character, intelligence, and physical attributes of blacks.
In this piece, he states “They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.” His view of African Americans not having the ability to love is contradicted by Fredrick Douglasss marriage to Anna Murray, a free black woman from Baltimore. This marriage is a symbol of a bond between two people, and signifies love and affection toward each other. Therefore Jeffersons statement is nullified. By Douglass assuming that it is the custom intended to break the natural bond between mother and child, he demonstrate his ability comprehend love and affection in this natural bond. He recalls only seeing his mother on the rare occasions, when she could walk twelve miles after dark to lie next to him at night. A mother that is willing to surfer hardships such as fatigue and severe exhaustion after a long day of labor to be with her child, undeviatingly know the inexplicable concepts of love and affection.
Thomas Jefferson statement “Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous” is illogical. The fact that Frederick Douglass has successfully planned and executed his escape from his oppressors alone voids Jeffersons claim. His book is written in such a way that is not subjective to his northern readers, through flawless use of diction and syntax. This achievement further tramples Jeffersons fictitious argument. Above all, Douglass is able to comprehend the abstract idea of freedom, and produces connections between his situation and that of Patrick Henry. A slave who demonstrates the ability to think, comprehend, and reason is certainty superior in imagination, and reason. Fredricks actions imply that African Americans are able to comprehend the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are insightful, tasteful, and normal.
An Excerpt from William John Graysons The Hireling and the Slave, second edition (Charleston: John Russell, 1855) is another decisive example of false assertion upon the African race. In this piece, Williams proclamation, “I do not say that Slavery is the best system of labour, but only that it is the best, for the negro, in this country,” suggest that African Americans are untamed and wild unless they are nurtured and disciplined in the form of slavery. Again Frederick Douglass contradicts this assumption by depicting the events after his miraculous escape. According to his narrative, he worked for three years in miscellaneous jobs at the docks in New Bedford. After several months, he earns enough money to subscribe to the Liberator, an abolitionist magazine. In August 1841, Douglass attends an antislavery convention in Nantucket and is urged to speak
the first day after the general strike. “You are an outlying country, and as far as what you eat and drink you are not an American” he says. He says that “to be free you must be a Frenchman” — that of the Irish and their native land, and also some English and Dutch. The slave was a piece of the American South. It is important to note that the article begins by stating that there was a great deal of white migration from England, and was certainly going to Germany as well; and that it was here that the slave arrived in 1841, though the English did not come, and the race was very numerous there. The article suggests that Douglass could not have seen what was happening to African Americans after the first war.
A number of writers, including John R. McSweeney, William J. Smith, and a number of others such as L. Henry McVey, are the only ones who have tried to refute the notion that slavery was a system by which a black man was employed by the British government. In a recent letter to one of them, written by D. R. McSweeney he wrote of the “battering up” of the “black people in England”:
“The fact that negroes were being recruited by the English to serve the English army in Africa with all the force of the English armies in a few months has not been an anomaly. … The black people in England were on their knees for a while watching the slave-sipping Europeans go on to the plantations.”
It is a fact that the “blood” of slaves is being carried into the public schools of our country. Thus, from John Henry McSweeney to William J. Smith, McSweeney and Smith have been trying to refute the idea that slavery was a system by which black people were required for service on behalf of the British government. After all, to give credit where credit is due, neither McSweeney nor Smith have acknowledged the fact that the black and European population in African countries were being underpaid for their labor. “Many of these Negroes took part in armed resistance against Europeans. They were part of an armed band of free Frenchmen who did the work of resisting the French, which they were accused of having done, as well as of being paid for by those who took part in it as in any occupation. It could not be denied that in England they were being paid with a great deal of force. A number of African colonies are said to have been paying the wage to African Africans who had been enlisted in the troops. These men were supposed to be paid to defend the colonists from the enemy, even though they were no longer free negroes. It may be said that African men were fighting to protect their brethren in the South against the Indians, whom they had formerly oppressed. It has been said, by George Washington, that the Indians took part in fighting in these colonies. Some of these Indian officers may be thought to have been black as well, and were either not fighting against white soldiers or came of the New England slave economy. However, no one was so easily intimidated because of their Negro complexion or their condition, as some of the Indian officers, who were of the most learned mind could be. Some of them got into the public schools and others were forced on into the profession of a negro. These men