Negative Effects Of Slavery In The South

Slavery in the South Slavery in the south was a very negative experience for the Africans that were forcefully enslaved and brought over to North America more specifically Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. The journey across the Atlantic was treacherous many didn’t survive due to sickness, starvation, or merely being murdered like cattle and thrown overboard. Eventually the sharks started following the ships for food because slaves were being thrown over so frequently, the sharks didn’t have any reason to hunt. After arriving in Virginia initially slaves were forced to help with crops like tobacco and cotton until the cotton gin was invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney, the main focus began to shift solely to cotton because of its enormous profit. Slaves
For many years there were laws in place that prohibited slaves from education. One statute in particular, passed in North Carolina in 1830, articulated that “any free person, who shall hereafter teach, or attempt to teach, any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, or shall give or sell to such slave or slaves any books or pamphlets, shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in this State” (Williams, 2005 para. 2). It was illegal for Africans to learn despite already being a slave. These laws were put in place to keep the slave master in power and the slave in the dark. Slave masters didn’t want their slaves to have education because it would make them more conscious of the situation they were in, would create dissatisfaction in their minds, and provide them with more clever ways of rebellion. The slaves where already running away with little to no education, so teaching them how to read would aid them on what areas to seek refuge and which areas to stay away from. Most slaves where illiterate so keeping education away from them was also a tool of psychological control for the slave