Andrew Green
09/29/2014
HIST 205
Reaction Paper
Europeans and Africans Lost Humanity
Stephanie
Smallwood’s book, Saltwater Slavery, gave
readers a more extensive view of slavery than they previously learned
throughout elementary, middle, and high school. The history books and teachers
failed to tell how slavery and the processes that went into it took the
humanity of slaves, African nations and people, and the European slave traders.
The slaves were slowly turned from being humans to being property or
commodities. After slaves were sold to Europeans, they were chained like
animals and kept in prison barracks along the Gold Coast until the slave ships
were ready to take them across the Atlantic.
Europeans
heavily involved in the slave trade lost their ability to feel empathy or treat
slaves with respect. This happened because of all the money that was involved
in the slave trade. The same loss of empathy for the slaves can be said of
African nations because they started going to war with each other just to
obtain more slaves to sell. Even during the time of the Revolution slave owners
did not see the paradox between fighting for their freedom from Britain while
simultaneously subjugating their African counterparts to a worse form of
oppression.
African
slaves started to lose their humanity as soon as they were sold to the
Europeans due to the way they were taken out of their communities. Slaves
captured in Africa captives were usually from the same area. This close
proximity allowed them to form little communities. African captives could unite
together through speaking the same language or having the same beliefs. After
being captured by the Europeans, slaves of had no way to form communities. They
were usually put next to complete strangers whose language was different.
There
were no opportunities for assimilation into European society. Slaves were not
allowed to read or write. They were in submissive roles in the presence of all
Europeans. The only status that the slaves shared, besides being African, was
that they were slaves with no rights. After there was no more gold to trade,
prisoners of war became the new desire of Europeans. The selling of these
captives became so lucrative that powerful African nations started going to war
with weaker nations in order to procure captives to trade with the Europeans.
After
being sold to the Europeans, slaves were put into barracks with Africans from
other countries. Most captives were lonely because they spoke a different
language from those they were housed with. Europeans sought to control slaves
by taking away their sense of community. In order to reduce escapes, they
housed together Africans of different tribes. Without a shared language most
slaves could not talk with each other and therefore could not make plans for
escape. Slaves were also separated by gender to further diminish their
humanity. Male and female slaves were never allowed to see one another except
for one exception. In order to have strong children, the strongest male and
female slaves were forced to sleep together.
Lastly,
families were separated. Relatives were never on the same ships or in the same
barracks on the Gold Coast. This was accomplished because they were sold
multiple times before even arriving on the Gold Coast. Children were separated
from their mothers and fathers, almost immediately after birth, in order to
avoid the familial attachment that came with spending time together. Separating
relatives and potential lovers further alienated Africans. It took away a human’s
basic network of loved ones with whom they held the strongest bonds.
The
demand for slaves and the profits associated with it also took away Europeans
humanity. Europeans began treating other human beings as just property or work
animals. The captains of slave ships only cared about getting the maximum number
of slaves onboard ships as possible. Captains gave slaves only five feet five
inches of space to lie down. Once in America slaves were inspected and sold at
auction like they were cars. Scientists calculated how many slaves a ship could
hold and captains would fit this number in the ship by any means possible.
Slaves would be packed so tight that they could not move or adjust position
once put in place. They had to endure sweltering heat and lie in their own or
others vomit or excrements. Slaves were even forced to bend and curve in order
to fit the shape of the boat.
Captains
also showed a lack of compassion for slaves. They decided it was best to save
money by doing the least possible work in order to keep the slaves alive. They
fed slaves as little as possible and gave them as little water as possible.
This created a paradox because you would want manual laborers to be strong,
well feed, and able to survive harsh conditions. Instead, these slaves were
skinny, malnourished, and close to death by the time they got to the new world.
Large numbers of people in an already hot area were breeding grounds for
diseases and the close quarters meant the diseases would spread.
Diseases
appeared because slaves were sitting in their own excrements and vomit. Lack of
sunlight and Vitamin C led to scurvy and other diseases. Diseases and
unwillingness by the white men to feed or care for all them offset the vast
number of slaves on the ship.
The
biggest example of Europeans and Africans’ loss of humanity was the simultaneous
existence of slavery and the Revolution. The colonists sought their freedom
from the unfair treatment they received from the crown. The colonists were not
forced to endure a lifetime of manual labor, experience relatives being taken
away from them, or face whippings. They believed housing British troops, stamp
taxes, and tea taxes were enough of an infringement on their rights. In spite
of all these factors, they refused to free slaves who suffered much harsher
abuses. The money associated with slavery caused most colonists, especially
those in the south, to ignore the abuses against the human rights of Africans.
While
colonists worried about keeping the British from unjustly taxing them or the
British military imposing on their private lives, Africans had to deal with
greater indignities. They were being forced to work most of the day, getting
whipped, and having family snatched away from them when their master saw that
they could make some money. Most colonists viewed African slaves as subhuman because
they were a different color, had different customs, and spoke different
languages.
The
Atlantic slave trade led to the loss of humanity for both Africans and
Europeans. Africans saw all of their human rights diminished once they arrived
in America. They were forced to do manual labor most of the day and into the
night. They received harsh whippings for even minor abuses. African slaves had
to deal with relatives being sold to other farms, and they were sometimes
forced to breed with whomever their master ordered them to.
The
Atlantic slave trade also caused Europeans to lose their compassion and empathy
for other humans. European slave traders saw nothing wrong with shackling many
people together in a tight space or forcing people to suffer harsh conditions
in order to maximize profits. Masters in the New World treated their slaves
like animals where if one died, they would simply buy another. Masters and
overseers saw nothing wrong with splitting up families or raping a slave. The
money associated with the slave trade caused African nations and slave traders
to behave in inhumane ways toward captive slaves. Both sold and purchased
slaves as they saw fit. These acts were part of the greed and insensitivity
that lead to Europeans putting profits above human rights. And, it also led to
slaves being treated more like farm animals than people.
Works Cited
- 1. Thomas C. Holt Trans. and Elsa Barkley Brown Trans. Major Problems in African American History. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. (USA: Boston, 2000).
- 2. Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).
- 3. Peter Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619-1877 (New York: Hill and Wang 2003).
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