Why is a historically significant of US Slavery - Essay Example

?Discuss whether the of slavery in the United s is better understood as one of inhumane harshness, or as something unequal, unfair, unjustifiable, but humane at least in certain aspects. Why is this historically significant? Thesis 19th century ideas of humanity had long term effects upon the position of black Americans into the 20th century. Introduction Ideas about what constituted being fully human, as well as what can be considered to be humane, were very different in the Southern states during the late 18th and 19th centuries , as described below. Such attitudes were so ingrained that war was seen as the only way to deal with the situation. This is historically significant because it had a long term effect upon the place of black Americans in society right into the mid- 20th century, affecting for instance their rights to vote as full American citizens. Whether or not treatment of Afro-Americans can have ever have been considered humane depends upon your definition of the words ’humane’ and ‘human’. Justifiable Slavery Slavery has been described on more than one occasion as a crime against humanity, 1 but this idea has not always been the prevailing one. When the first Europeans shipped slaves from Africa the practice was already a long established as a norm in society on that continent. The Europeans were merely taking advantage of what was made available to them. Then gradually the trade increased, with traders offering good prices for more and more slaves to work in the newly discovered lands of the New World. It is estimated that some 10 million black Africans were eventually landed and sold on as slaves - this estimate of course does not any account of the massive numbers who died before arrival. 2 It is relatively easy in the early 21st century to believe that slavery is wrong and find it hard to comprehend why people ever thought it was justifiable, especially if one reads the many accounts of the cruelty and horrors which were often involved. It is such stories which tend to stand out, rather than the ones were a slave was an established part of a household and community. There was obvious inequality, unfairness and modern man may feel this was not justified, being unable to fully put themselves into their shoes, but the people of earlier times just did not have the same mind set. Many of those who were slave holders were sincere Christians and could quote the scriptures which apparently backed up their position. This was backed up by their clergy. The Old Testament had laws as to how slaves should be treated e.g. Exodus 21 v 5 which refers to servants who did not want to leave their masters. Deuteronomy 15 v 11 onwards were taken as instructions as how to treat them i.e. provide for them. Verses such as Exodus 21 v 20 were used to justify the beating of slaves. In the New Testament there are verses such as Ephesians 6 v 5 ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear.’ and Titus 2 v 9 ‘Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything.’3 These ideas were not just based upon the Bible, but were generally accepted . Great thinkers such as Aristotle claimed that :- We see what is the nature and office of a slave; he who is by nature not his own but another's man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be another's man who, being a human being, is also a possession.4 He does however also say ‘Is not all slavery a violation of nature’, but decides that it is not, on the grounds that some are natural leaders and others naturally subservient. It should be pointed out that this was not racial prejudice, but simply refers to weaker people, perhaps captured in times of war. . Thomas Aquinas, operating within a rather different society – one of medieval feudalism, took a similar position – leaders and led.5 Philosopher John Locke in the 17th century was concerned with the way that the British monarchs were treating their people - the British i.e. white people, could not become slaves of the Stuarts he maintained, but on the other hand Africans were sub-human and so slavery for them was totally acceptable. Great thinkers such as these conveniently backed up the slave owners as they continued to suppress the people they owned. A BBC writer has pointed out that if this argument is to be followed then those who should be natural slaves and those who should be the natural masters need to be tested and so defined, but such a definition has never been agreed by all peoples, although some have thought they had done so in the past. 6 The writer goes on to describe how some have claimed that certain people were so inferior that they deserved to be made into slaves. This argument would have been popular with those who obtained slaves in war or by raiding – if they lost the battle they were inferior and so could be humiliated and carried off. In some cases these were the people who were carried off to the coast of Africa and then sold to the masters of slave ships and taken to the West Indies or North America. Yet the matter was not one considered to have been decided for all time. Stephens quotes Lucy Ford as having said that the matter was hotly debated in the south and she describes justification of the prevailing system as ‘tormented’.. Another possible argument is that slaves were incapable of organizing their own lives and so needed the direction given by a master - is it any surprise that these people had difficulties in coping ? - people who had travelled in the appalling conditions of a slave ship, usually after a long overland journey to strange places, mixed up with people whose language they did not comprehend , beaten , chained, and often ill, and then subjected to the humiliation of being sold at public auction. There were economic arguments - the South in particular depended upon slave labor to produce the crops of cotton, tobacco etc on which their riches and luxurious life styles were based. Black slaves were considered to be better able to cope with the heat and long hours involved - Nash cites them as being expected to work for 14 hours a day during the hot summer months. This of course was before such things as tractors and petrol driven machinery and other modern aids and tools.7 A counter argument was that those who did not use slave labor were not competing on a level playing field and so were economically disadvantaged. Africans were bought in to replace the indigenous people who had been much weakened or in some areas even eradicated, by war and disease. Nash et al put forward the idea of the Southern white male seeing himself still as a kind of feudal overlord with a paternalistic attitude to the people he governed. 8 Nash goes on to describe how religion – Christianity with touches of Islam and aspects of African religions, was an important part of Afro-American life, but how this was suppressed and used as a form of control by their white masters. Not all slaves accepted their position without resistance of course – this could include everything from deliberately breaking tools to running away and burning down houses. This culminated in a slave revolt in 1831, by which time of course the black population, in some areas at least, exceeded that of the whites. The argument that would have been put, that slavery was legal, cannot considered to be a viable one. There have been many laws down the centuries that are morally and ethically wrong e.g. the way in which Jews in Germany were restricted in the early days of the Third Reich. On occasions historically former slaves had become the master race. The Bible reminds the Hebrews that they had themselves been slaves themselves, and so tells them in Exodus 23 v 9 not to oppress strangers, the word stranger in this context being understood as slaves. This however is not an argument which relates well to the situation in North America. Slave owners would also be aware of the short book of Philemon in which Paul writes to a slave owner, sending back to him his thieving runaway slave Onesimus. Paul tells Philemon he cannot order him to do so, but urges him to welcome him as a fellow Christian brother, even offering to pay any cost that Philemon has gone to. It is known that in the early church slaves often took positions of leadership, while in their everyday life they still served their slave masters. The society of that day seemed able to cope with this dichotomy. So how did all this affect the black African slaves in America? The answer is that it depends. According to Chaplin 9 it is difficult to make sense of how great cruelty and extreme exploitation could be combined with seemingly progressive ideas. She quotes from 19th century slave holder, Southern Carolingian William Moultrie:- Very pleased to see the treatment of slaves in the country …altered so much….tenderness and humanity. It seems that words such as humane and humanity were being increasing used by slave owners to explain their attitudes. It seems, according to Chaplin that such ideas had been spreading from the mid-18th century onwards. They finally came to the conclusion that these were fellow human beings, rather than something lower, animal like. The problem comes because if you consider that you are treating slaves in a humane way, and this can be backed up from the Bible, why should things change? It was seen as part of the natural order. In 1848 Mrs. C.F. Alexander had written ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ a celebration of God and his creation. There is a verse no longer included in hymn books which reflects the thinking of the time:- The rich man in his castle The poor man at his gate He made them high and lowly 10 And ordered their estate. If God was really all powerful and he had allowed these people to be enslaved, and others to be their masters, then this must be the way God wanted it, was the prevailing attitude. Their thinking was based upon the idea of white supremacy and because most slaves were totally uneducated, did heavy laboring rather than more skilled work, lived in poor housing and did not have fine clothes , this view was perpetuated, even if the reasons why they were in such a position was imposed upon them by the white population. This was a minority position11, but so deeply entrenched in the South that it would not have been possible to eradicate the practice by civil means, i.e. by legislation. The South by the 1830’s was increasingly isolated, and the clergy there saw themselves as being involved in a kind of religious war for what they believed was God’s plan for society. On the other hand many in the northern states saw slavery as being a cancerous growth which was gradually destroying American society. The word ‘Humanity’ in those days had a rather different definition to how the term is understood today - it meant simply that they were recognized as also being human with human needs – shelter, food and clothing, but did not extend to ideas such as their social and political rights. That they were definitely seen as something different, and that this extended far beyond skin color, can be seen in an article of 1851 written by a physician , Dr Cartwright,12 who, by the fact of his scientific background, writes with an air of authority. In his article he lists diseases considered to be peculiar to slaves such as ‘rascality’ and ‘drapetomania’ which he defined as having the major symptom of escaping from service. The doctor points out that such conditions as he lists are unknown among the ‘long list of maladies that man is subject to’, i.e. the implications are that these are not conditions which the white majority were subject to, therefore these slaves aren’t quite human. In the second paragraph of the article the doctor goes into detail of what should be considered the proper position of negroes in Southern society , and condemns any ideas with regard to improving the position of slaves or considering them as equals, in fact to make him something other than a ‘submissive knee-bender’ – something clearly defined , as far as Doctor Cartwright is concerned, as being outside the will of God. He then goes on to say that those who lose their slaves i.e. who have slaves who flee to the North, are of two types. These are defined as on the one hand those who are too kind, making little in the way of distinction between slaves and master. On the other hand he cites those who are cruel, not being humane and supplying their slaves with basic necessities such as food, shelter and clothing of a kind. Such ideas had and have important long term implications because, even after slavery in the United States of America was abolished in 1865 under the 13th Amendment, ex –slaves and their descendants were still considered to be and so were treated as second class citizens, 13something only overcome to any extent after the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid- 20th century. Yet there were those who were able to show their qualities. In 1899 a librarian from the Library of Congress was asked to collect together copies of all books and pamphlets written by Negro authors. The librarian, Daniel Murray was able to find over a thousand such texts, examples for all to see. 14 It took until 1965, and the Voting Rights Act, that African Americans were finally able to vote. Such laws came about as a result of thinking such as that of Kirkpatrick15 A democratic system rests ultimately on the belief that each man is the best judge of his own interests and that he should have, through the ballot box, a voice in choosing those who govern him. "Voting is the fundamental political right of citizens in a democracy. ……There is no justifiable test of property, race, color, national origin, religion, or education for disfranchising one class of citizens." Although, the 15th Amendment16 to the Constitution of the United States allowed African American men the vote, as well as prohibiting federal or state governments from interfering with infringing a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," there had been found a number of ways to get round this provision e.g. literacy tests, and it was only after the passing of the 1965 act that such obstacles were finally overcome. Conclusion It can be clearly seen that well-meaning ideas about what was humane, believed to be backed up by scriptures, as well as other authorities , were deep seated and did not extend in the 19th and even early 20th century, as it might in the present time, to ideas about true equality. This had long term negative effects upon black Americans long after the abolition of slavery, despite the fact that it was obvious that these were fellow human beings with many of the needs common to all. References 13th Amendment to the American Constitution December 6th 1865, The Library of Congress, accessed 18th November 2011 from http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html 15th Amendment to the American Constitution, 1870, Library of Congress, accessed 18th November 2011 from http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/15thamendment.html Alexander, C., All Things Bright and Beautiful, 1848 Aristotle’s Politics, Book 1 , Section 4, translated by B. Jowett. Areopagus, accessed 19th November 2011 from http://www.cleverley.org/areopagus/docs/aristotle/aribk1_4_6.html BBC Ethics Guide, ( 2011) Attempts to Justify Slavery , accessed 19th November 2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/ethics/justifications.shtml Bible, New International Version, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1979 Cartwright, Dr, Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, De Bows Review, Southern and Western States, Volume XI, New Orleans, 1851, accessed 18th November 2011 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html Chaplin, J., Slavery and the Principle of Humanity: A Modern Idea in the early Lower South, Journal of Social History, 1990, accessed 18th November 2011 from http://www.jstor.org/pss/3787500 Daniel P. Murray and His Mission, The Progress of a People, African American Perspectives, (undated) accessed 18th November 2011 from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aapexhp.html Kirkpatrick, E.,(November 1963) Report of the President’s Commission on Registration and Voting Participation , accessed 18th November 2011 from http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr11032.pdf Leeson, J., Slavery and the South; A Different Position, History 4070, accessed 19th November 2011 from http://mgagnon.myweb.uga.edu/students/Leeson.html Locke and Slavery ( undated) accessed 19th November 2011 from http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/distance_arc/locke/locke-slavery-lec.html Nash, J. The American People, 6th Edition, Chapter 11, Slavery and the Old South, New York, Barnes and Noble, 2004, accessed 19th November 2011 from wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/577/590960/.../chp11.ppt Stephens, R., April 2010, Justifying Slavery in the Old South: An Interview With Lucy K. Ford., Historically Speaking, Volume 11, Number 2, pages 35-36., accessed 19th November 2011 from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/historically_speaking/v011/11.2.stephens01.pdf Ukabiala, J.( 2001) ‘Slave Trade: A Crime Against Humanity, Africa Recovery, accessed 19th November 2011 from http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol15no3/153racis.htm Zagel, H. ( 2003) Aquinas on Slavery : An Aristotelian Puzzle, Congrezzo Tomista Internazionale, accessed 19th November 2011 from http://www.e-aquinas.net/pdf/zagal.pdf Read More