Preview

“a Troublesome Property: Master-Slave Relations in Florida 1821-1865” by Larry E. Rivers

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
271 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
“a Troublesome Property: Master-Slave Relations in Florida 1821-1865” by Larry E. Rivers
Jared Eummer
AFA 3104-006
February 25, 2013

“A Troublesome Property: Master-Slave Relations in Florida 1821-1865” by Larry E. Rivers The adage “You reap what you sow” is the saying that characterizes the times of slavery. Slave masters sowed bad seeds upon themselves by abusing, neglecting, undermining, and deceiving their slaves. In return, they reaped consequences of slave rebellion, slave wittiness, and overall the come up of the black race. In Larry Rivers “A Troublesome Property: Master-Slave Relations in Florida 1821-1865” he expounds on how slaves used what was supposed to make them oppressed and hopeless to their advantage by them learning how to outsmart their masters. The masters had no clue what was going on their plantation in those supposed religious meetings. The slaves would use sermons and fake church services to plot on escaping. It was a brilliant idea in my opinion. Having the slave owners not know what was happening and then if they show up and pretend it was a service. I can see myself doing something like that. Some slaves did get caught and when they did they suffered the consequences. Most consequences included physical abuse and even murder. Unhappy with their uncomfortable living situations, slaves helped the masters “reap what they sold” by doing those witty things that led to consequences. Larry Rivers emphasizes the importance of religion in his short article. Religion helped get the slaves through their toughest life moments. Religion is the seed in the slaves; the masters did not want to grow because they know that with that, they were going to reap what they

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In schools around the US, students are taught that past the civil war, slavery became nonexistent. However, as I read through Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name, I realized that slavery did not stop in 1865, but that it had continued for decades after, with arguably worse conditions and restrictions. In his book, Blackmon describes the struggles of African Americans after the 13th Amendment’s enactment. He describes the south’s transition from pre civil war legalized slavery to the post civil war modern industrial slavery.…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slaveholders used church to trick and control slaves and also made slaves fear their masters for safety. For example, when…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Slavery, the dark beast that consumes, devours, and pillages the souls of those who are forced to within its bounds and those who think they are the powerful controllers of this filth they call business. This act is the pinnacle of human ignorance, they use it as the building blocks for their “trade,” and treat these people no more than replaceable property that can be bought, sold, and beaten on a whim. The narrative of Frederick Douglass is a tale about a boy who is coming of age in a world that does not accept him for who he is and it is also told as a horror that depicts what we can only imagine as the tragedies placed on these people in these institutions of slavery. It is understood as a chronicle of his life telling us his story from childhood to manhood and all that is in between, whilst all this is going on he vividly mixes pathological appeals to make us feel for him and all his brethren that share his burden. His narrative is a map from slavery to freedom where he, in the beginning, was a slave of both body and mind. But as the story progresses we see his transformation to becoming a free man both of the law and of the mind. He focuses on emotion and the building up of his character to show us what he over time has become. This primarily serves to make the reader want to follow his cause all the more because of his elegant and intelligent style of mixing appeals. Through his effective use of anecdotes and vivid imagery he shows us his different epiphanies over time, and creates appeals to his character by showing us how he as a person has matured, and his reader’s emotion giving us the ability to feel for his situation in a more real sense. This helps argue that the institution of slavery is a parasitic bug that infects the slave holder with a false sense of power and weakens the slave in both body and spirit.…

    • 1321 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to the narrative of Frederick Douglass, during the 19th Century, the conditions slaves experienced were not only cruel, but inhumane. It is a common perception that “cruelty” refers to the physical violence and torture that slaves endure. However, in this passage, Douglass conveys the degrading treatment towards young slaves in the plantation, as if they were domesticated animals. The slaves were deprived of freedom and basic human rights. They were not only denied of racial equality, they weren’t even recognized as actual human beings.…

    • 391 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History shows a dark side of society where slavery was prevalent, where it was not considered a crime but had some very negative affects. Rates of violence and abuse of slavery for the early inhabitants of Central and North America. Where slaves, if they were not compliant, they were harshly treated and were sometimes even put to death. This…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “africanized” the south, and strong willed, rebellious slaves and free blacks decided to not stand for their forced institution by breaking away from their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual restraints. The “peculiar”institution [1] of southern slavery became the most trivial and horrifying…

    • 2781 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Proceeding to the American Revolution slavery was not a huge concern or had produces much debate, it was all about government power. But on the contrary was an issue that created problem. Traders taking slave and auction those to Christian nations apposed a problem. Ironically, trader by the time the American colonies began to grow or populate, they took the slaves from non-Christian parts of West Africa. It wasn’t an argument about slavery; it was all about church and its principles.…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “This quality is the germ of all education in him.” Slavery influenced masters and other whites in ways of creating “boisterous passions” that created degrading comments to one another. This is spread through the children and other whites seeing or being raised only one way of seeing a “master” degrade his slaves. Slavery influenced slaves that they prefer ways that avoid areas that can or have made work for them.…

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery is an evil institution that, once established, robs not only the humanity of the enslaved, but also the morality of the slaveholder. It deprives the slave’s natural desire for knowledge, and hypocritically denies a man of his God given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, stated in the Declaration of Independence for the very country that enslaves him. Douglass uses specific examples, in the case of Hugh and Sophia Auld, Thomas Auld, Colonel Lloyd and Edward Covey, the slaveholders’ reliance on religion, and the harm caused to the slaves themselves, to show that although slavery is in itself a blatant disregard for human life, it also has drastic effects on the degradation of the slaveholder’s own morality.…

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery DBQ

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Slavery was a very unstable, fluctuating part of history. From 1775 to 1830, slavery was booming, while at the same time, plenty of slaves were freed. Although this statement seems paradoxical, it is entirely accurate. The reasons for this happening range from political manipulation to social typecasting. Not only are these reasons imperative, but understanding how enslaved and freed African Americans responded to what was happening around them is also important.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Underneath the racial hierarchy possesses the truth behind why slaves are subjected to harsh labor work. Slaves worked hard from morning till night cooking, cultivating, and relentlessly laboring. Moreover, if they did not behave, they would undergo terrifying predicament such as being tortured in front of their peers as a way to discourage rebellion. Although African Americans were known as minorities, they had played an important role in the American Revolution. Slaves had helped the Patriots win and shaped what is now “America”, yet no benefits were given. When the British created myriads of tax laws, to earn more money because of debt, the Patriots started to believe that they could gain their independence again. Believing these dreams, the Patriot told the slaves that they could be “free” at last , if they helped fight.…

    • 275 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They believed they owned the slaves—not as people but as property. This sense of ownership blinded slave owners with greed and self-indulgence. They were focused on making profits and abusing their “property.” They were working towards immorality and corruption without the slightest remorse of their actions. However, there were some owners who, compared to others, treated their workers with a bit more compassion. These owners taught their laborers how to read and write. They, although seemingly cruel to their fellow Northerners, didn’t abuse their right of ownership. Instead of completely taking control of a slave’s mind, they gave him a taste of the outside world to suppress their rebellious mindsets. Owning slaves gave southerner’s power over them, granting them…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The enslavement of African Americans in the antebellum South and the atrocities that occurred against the slaves are unspeakable to say the least. However the African slaves had modes of strategy, a sort of “silent sabotage” of sorts or they would try to make the best out of the situation. Slaves resistance of their forced servitude with techniques such as trickery, song and faith.…

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Have you ever thought about the explicit details that went into the creation of America? Slavery and the Making of America, written by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton uses facts and stories to portray the life of slaves, and the evolution of slavery over several decades, and its effect on America today. The title of this book, Slavery and the Making of America is a great leeway into the authors’ main thesis of the book; “Slavery was, and continues to be, a critical factor in shaping the United States and all of its people. As Americans, we must understand slavery’s history if we are ever to be emancipated from its consequences,” (Horton). Throughout the six chapters in this book, the authors’ go into explicit details on what actions from both white Americans and African slaves led to the Civil War, the abolition of slavery and America as it is today.…

    • 1403 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Afro-Baptist Slave Rituals

    • 1298 Words
    • 6 Pages

    At this time, whites and blacks were attending the same church gatherings. Racial discrimination remained a factor in the church on plantations. Plantation chapels were used for slaves and masters. Masters utilized these plantation chapels to control slaves by minimizing them from traveling. At revival camp meetings, settings, tents, and seating remained…

    • 1298 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics