Impacts of Slavery on Society - Essay Example

Impact of Slavery w7

Slavery is a form of exploitation. Slavery often signifies a lasting service commitment where the master’s consent is the only way to dissolve that responsibility. Slavery gives the master an illogical authority to administer every kind of alteration, including inhumane modification, to the slave. While the adjustment may not affect the body or the life of the slave immediately, sometimes these are also left unprotected to the illogical will of the master or slight punishments or other fines protect them. However, such penalties or fines are sometimes too insensitive to confine the inhumanity of the master. In turn, this leads to an inability to obtain, except for the benefit of the master and enables the master to separate the enslaved individual in the same way as holding property. Slavery also descends from parent to child together with all of its features. Based on this view of the slavery condition, its effects can be derived easily. This paper examines the impact of slavery by stating that slavery corrupts the morals of the master, it denies the enslaved people the rights and privileges of a specific society, it is harmful to the state because it involves violence, it makes slaves powerless, and it contributes to economic development.

Slavery corrupts the master’s morals by freeing him from the limitations of the enslaved, which are required to manage human integrity. In most cases, masters perceived slaves as ethnically separate. The typical difference was the lack of kinship. People who were ethnically similar to the master, for instance through speaking a single language, sharing the same culture, believing in the same religion and shared the same political association was challenging to manage than people from outside. If cultural or dialect difference is less significant, the social separation and the exploitation level of slaves are mostly restricted. In turn, this demonstrates the existence of small slave holdings and minimal economic and political stratification. However, dominant slavery forms have been those that involved the removal of slaves from their birth location to another place of a considerable distance, which highlighted their foreign origin. An example of such an uprooting included the movement of slaves from Africa across the Atlantic Ocean, which was useful in defining slaves as outsiders (Davis, 1999).

When economies and social structures were more complex, identifying slaves as outsiders became more prominent so that the ability of masters to exploit their services and labor was not affected by the acculturation that happened (Acharya, Blackwell, & Sen, 2016). Religion was also a way of grouping slaves where slaves were mostly from other faiths. Besides, even when slaves began practicing the master’s religion, they were primarily regarded less devout. European masters considered slaves as racially different, in spite of acculturation (Gaskin, Headen, & White-Means, 2005). They defined slaves as outsiders, which guaranteed that the acquisition of rights in their society was restricted. There were other differences, like dialect differences, the accent of individuals who had just acquired a new dialect, body, and facial markings, memory and perceived physical features. Thus, masters reduced the status of people from a state of citizenship and freedom to a state of slavery (Goody, 1980).

Slavery denies the enslaved people the rights and privileges of a specific society. Slavery was mainly a way of denying outsiders privileges and rights of a particular community so that they could be exploited for political, social or economic objectives (Kain, 1992). The dominant features of slavery include the thought that slaves can be compared to property, and the idea that slaves are the outsiders and are thus foreign by origin or their heritage is denied through specific sanctions including judicial sanctions. Other features encompass the notion that coercion can be applied willingly and that the labor of slaves is at the complete disposal of their masters (Gaskin, Headen, & White-Means, 2005). Slaves are also denied the right to their sexuality and masters considered the status of their slaves as inherited unless they made a provision to eliminate that standing (Finley, 1998). Since they were regarded as property, their masters considered them as goods that can be sold and bought. They belonged to their masters who rule entirely over them. Kinship units, religious institutions, and other institutions in the society cannot protect slaves as legitimate people. Since slaves are regarded as property, masters and the community can treat them as commodities.

However, in specific cases, slaves were considered more than just products. For example, some societies placed limitations regarding the slave trade once a certain level of acculturation occurred. Such constraints can be purely moral, as they were in the North America where the society considered it wrong to divide families when sales happened (Hummel, 2013). However, in most cases, masters did what they desired. In other instances, limitations were enforced, and people were given a certain level of emancipation that prohibited slave trade (Acharya, Blackwell, & Sen, 2016). Among Muslims, women take as concubines were not legally traded once they had produced children through their master. Besides, the children were practically free and were recognized that way. In many cases, the women gained their freedom following the death of their master or they could be set nominally free after giving birth. However, after giving birth, they could not terminate their concubine status but attained an intermediate standpoint between freedom and slavery (Finley, 1998). Other slavery trade limitations contained the capacity of a master to sell slaves’ children, either due to religious sentiments like among Muslims or due to the confirmation of ethnic status or acceptable kinship. If trading continued, masters carefully justified it based on sorcery, criminal events or other ideological reasons. The same reasons could lead to the sale of freeborn people of the same community. Nevertheless, the main characteristic feature of slavery is that slaves were regarded as the property of other people or groups and were denied their rights and privileges (Gaskin, Headen, & White-Means, 2005). About freedom, all societies place many limitations on people. However, even when this is identified, slaves can still be understood as people who lack freedom. In the case of slave societies, being free entailed a defined status in a kinship group, a ruling class, a caste or other groups. Such recognition encompassed a group of obligations and rights that differed substantially based on the circumstances, although they were still different from the duties and powers of the slaves, who lacked rights practically but had obligations.

The emancipation event identified that freedom and slaves were different (Hummel, 2013). Emancipation showed that authority was under the free, not under the slaves. Consequently, slavery was a way of denying privileges and rights to outsiders of a specific group so that they could be misused.

Another consequence of slavery is that it is harmful to the state because it involved violence. Slavery has mostly been initiated by violence that decreased the status of an individual from a citizenship and freedom state to a slavery condition (Goody, 1980). Warfare has been the most dominant kind of violence where prisoners were confined. Violence varied, for instance, it could involve raids for robbery, abduction, and procurement of slaves. In turn, this shows that slavery was a by-product of violence abduction, raiding and warfare have accounted for many slaves throughout history. In cases where the war motives were not to obtain slaves, the relationship between slavery and war was usually high. Among states where enslaving prisoners was customary, the influential people mostly considered the potential for settling the war cost by selling and using slaves. If raids and wars became extreme, they led to a continued prevalence of slavery.

Although violence led to high incidents of slavery across history, religious and judicial proceedings also led to a certain level of slavery. Among some societies, slavery was a kind of legal punishment for offenses like sorcery, adultery, theft, and murder. However, suspects were enslaved through different methods, even though they were mostly sold away from their home state or community. However, this kind of slavery was also founded in violence, yet the societies that practiced them perceived it as legal. The person’s status was substantially decreased since he or she could lose his or her community membership and the punishment could approve a situation that his or her descendants inherited (Finley, 1998). Voluntary slavery instances had also existed, especially when the risk of starvation left people without an option, which does not involve violence. Other structural reasons could also have placed people in circumstances in which survival was not assured. Thus, people saw the need to enslave themselves. However, the underlying idea could also involve violent or exploitative dimensions (Finley, 1998). Nevertheless, it was unusual for voluntary enslavement to happen and it contributed less significantly to the entire proportion of slaves in a majority of locations. Besides, the potential for voluntary slavery relied on the availability of the slavery institution where violence was involved.

The coercion level found in bondage could be visible or disguised. For example, masters could enforce their will due to their ability to discipline slaves for failing to adhere to their orders or to complete their roles reasonably. Dominant coercion means included the ability to dispose of slaves by selling them, extra hard work, food deprivation, confinement, and whipping. Physical punishment could result in death even in the presence of customary and legal prohibitions on slave killing since masters rarely enforced such rules (Finley, 1998). Thus, slavery mostly involved violence.

Slavery makes slaves powerless. While people should always struggle to free themselves from the difficulties of life, slaves are mostly powerless before their masters, and they cannot set themselves free. The masters usually have the complete authority to do whatever they want with slaves, even killing them. While slaves have the idealistic power to change their master, they cannot control them. Dali’s painting The Persistence of Memory challenges this idea (Eprile, 2004). The painting shows that the society is enslaved by time just like slaves are enslaved by their masters. Slaves are oppressed by their master where the masters rule them in such a way that they are frightened. Masters disturbs the stability of people and dares their actions. Slaves cannot understand their masters although their masters are the central elements of their existence. Slaves behave by labeling their masters with the expectation that by labeling them they will understand them. Nevertheless, Dali’s painting demonstrates that the masters are limitless in their actions towards slaves, even though they are limited in the society. The Persistence of Memory reminds people never to waste their time because they cannot be sure of the amount of time they have at their disposal. The painting also demonstrates that slaves answer to their masters. The melting timers challenge the steadiness of masters because they can vanish before people’s eyes. It is challenging to re-experience the past, but it is possible to plan for the future. The life’s beauty stands in the background as time melts away and thus it is vital to bring that beauty forward. It is also vital to experience the reality that time will melt away regardless of how it is used. The society cannot ignore the amount of time that it has because it is possible that the available time is less than what is present in reality. The importance of time is the most valuable thing people can learn. Time melts away at a faster rate that it is impossible to stop, change or catch up with it. As time changes, the world is also changing constantly. Underneath the hierarchy that time reflects, some people decide how to use it. Time can change the world. Thus, masters challenge slave’s perseverance and strength, but they can grant them the authority to improve lives.

Slaves contribute to economic development. Functioning for about 400 years, slavery substantially transformed the American south by fuelling its economic development through the provision of cheap labor. It largely funded the industrial revolution through the provision of cheap agricultural goods, for example by supplying cotton to Liverpool and Lowell and by meeting the enormous needs of Euro Americans for tobacco, coffee, and sugar. Slavery trade was a profitable business in itself and based on it; other fortunes were also found. Slavery was entrenched in the economics of several countries that encouraged it through their customs and regulations. As sources of forced labor, slaves were required to support many businesses due to their inexpensiveness. It was challenging to eliminate slavery because of the stream of riches associated with it (Berlin, 2009). Consequently, slaves were very useful to their masters because and the societies that depend on them because of the part they played in economic development.

In conclusion, at the core of slavery is brutality, violence and a philosophical imperative to dehumanize the slaves to justify various atrocities required to keep them in line and thereby sustain economic, social and political order. Slavery deprives the enslaved people by suppressing their cultures, exploiting them sexually, abusing them physically, displacing their friendliness ties, and denying privileges and rights to them. All these abuses are done on humans in ways that affect their identity and minds. While slaves contributed significantly to the economic development of their masters, they were regarded as property that could be sold and bought even though they were humans. In turn, this left slaves powerless without anything to do to regain their freedom. Even with their value, particularly about economic development, their masters still coerced them and treated them as outsiders.