Slavery in Early American History - Essay Example

Slavery was practiced in the North America at its climax for up to two centuries before legal issues and human rights fighters started the foundation of dissolving this vice. The vice started fading in the late 18th century, but continued to thrive in the Southern States of North America. Most slaves were found in areas that were active in cash crop agriculture and other areas that required hard manual labor such as industrial areas (Kolchin, 9). Needless to say, many evils happened during the extended period that slavery existed.

This essay will discuss the supposed differences that led to the degradation of the blacks as slaves in English America. Terrors that were experienced in slave ships during their transportation and some of the evolutions in the slave ships will also be discussed. These will base their reference on two books: The White Man’s Burden by Winthrop D. Jordan and The Slave Ship, by Marcus Rediker. The black people underwent a lot of maltreatment as slaves during slavery, and in slave ships in the early American history.

The major difference that formed the basis of every other difference the whites had in degrading the Africans was the skin color. This is according to the book, The White Man’s Burden, by Winthrop D. Jordan. The skin color of the Africans made the Whites believe that they were a radically unusual race. This drove to the belief that this peculiar race was then inferior and thus had no right to some of the rights that the Whites had access. Africans were, therefore, considered lesser than the White Men, and were subjected to play servitude to the perceived superior mankind, the White People.

“By 1700, when Africans began flooding into English America, they were treated as somehow deserving a life and status radically different from English and other European settlers” (Winthrop, 26). According to Jordan, an initial