Slavery In America Essay
Slavery has been a part of humanity since the Neolithic Revolution, with recorded evidence of slavery going back to 2100 B.C. (Mark, 2014). However, slavery was never practiced on such a scale as was done in the New World. Over ten million people were moved from the African continent to the New World in the largest movement of people in history (Shi, Tindall, 2016). This massive project had profound effects on the new American nation.
Slavery in America has its roots in the legal indentured servitude movement. In Jamestown and the other early colonies, labor shortages were a frequent problem. At the same time, Great Britain was experiencing a surplus of landless workers who were flooding their cities (Shi, Tindall, 2016). In order to kill two …show more content…
To fix the shortage, Dutch traders soon brought slaves from Africa, and so, the new colonies were soon brought into the Trans-Atlantic African slave trade. Tobacco, sugar, and rice were traded for slaves. These crops were brought to Europe, were they were traded for manufactured goods such as guns and tools. The goods were then brought to Africa, where they were traded with the local rulers for slaves, and so the process went. This process was started by the Portuguese, was maintained largely by the British, and continued even after slavery was outlawed in Great Britain. The trade was dealt a large blow when the US outlawed slavery in 1865, and was finally ended in 1888 when Brazil outlawed it as well, the last country to do so.
The most obvious issue with slavery is its morality. Treating people as nothing but cattle to be herded, branded, and labored in the fields is morally repugnant in almost every moral system of note that people have developed (when applied universally). The first Abolitionist thought appeared in the 14th century, with the earliest law against slavery from King Louis X of France in 1315 (Miller 2008). Unfortunately, such thought didn’t appear in America until the late 18th century, with the earliest statesman in favor of abolition being Thomas Jefferson (Dierksheide,
Slavery in America has its roots in the legal indentured servitude movement. In Jamestown and the other early colonies, labor shortages were a frequent problem. At the same time, Great Britain was experiencing a surplus of landless workers who were flooding their cities (Shi, Tindall, 2016). In order to kill two …show more content…
To fix the shortage, Dutch traders soon brought slaves from Africa, and so, the new colonies were soon brought into the Trans-Atlantic African slave trade. Tobacco, sugar, and rice were traded for slaves. These crops were brought to Europe, were they were traded for manufactured goods such as guns and tools. The goods were then brought to Africa, where they were traded with the local rulers for slaves, and so the process went. This process was started by the Portuguese, was maintained largely by the British, and continued even after slavery was outlawed in Great Britain. The trade was dealt a large blow when the US outlawed slavery in 1865, and was finally ended in 1888 when Brazil outlawed it as well, the last country to do so.
The most obvious issue with slavery is its morality. Treating people as nothing but cattle to be herded, branded, and labored in the fields is morally repugnant in almost every moral system of note that people have developed (when applied universally). The first Abolitionist thought appeared in the 14th century, with the earliest law against slavery from King Louis X of France in 1315 (Miller 2008). Unfortunately, such thought didn’t appear in America until the late 18th century, with the earliest statesman in favor of abolition being Thomas Jefferson (Dierksheide,