Discussion Paper 1

Casey Joseph

Professor McKinney 

Slavery in the United States

September 30, 2014

Sell Me Back!

Karl Marx, a German philosopher who believed in Capitalism, said that the starting point for almost all capitalist societies is a system of commodities. When some people think of a commodity, they think of goods and tradable assets that are usually not considered goods. Humans became a commodity in the 1600’s when the Atlantic slave trade began. No moral compass tells one human that owning another is acceptable. This being true, the new world must have twisted the story into convincing people that it was necessary. Not only were they a different color, but they were ugly to the white population. Smallwood writes, “In a single word, ‘lusty,’ purveyors captured the image of the ideal slave”¹.To a smaller extent, the slave trade could be compared to the ‘Holocaust.’ Africans were sent in a death trap of disease to the new world and sold to plantation masters who would punish them and withhold their freedom. The propaganda said that slavery was needed to keep the economy strong. The economy was strong because the labor was nearly free except for the bare minimal living expenses. It is not very hard to turn profit when their is no expenses. Turning them into commodities was done as soon as they were captured, and the discussion is quite disturbing. 

In Stephanie Smallwood’s book, Saltwater Slavery, she talks about the trek across the Atlantic and arriving in the New World. The process of commodification began when they put the Africans on the boat (McKinney). They were separated from their home and sent to a foreign land, where nothing was known. When questions were asked, the captains would rarely give a straight or detailed answer. Olaudah Equinano was an African child when he was sent through to America. After asking what was to be done with them, the captain said, “We were to be carried to these white people’s country to work for them”¹. This trip would certainly be there last across the ocean, because commodities do have expiration dates. Many would die on the ship and simply be tossed off the boat. They stripped them of their culture and their mourning rituals. These are all steps to commodify them and put them in a category by themselves. They were sold, traded, and bought like goods at a market. They were even shipped like cargo in a plane. Giving them no room to stretch out and walk around. “Slaves became, for the purpose of transatlantic shipment, mere physical units that could be arranged and molded at will - whether folded together spoon like in rows or flattened side by side in a plane”¹. The South believed that this commodity was a necessity to increase the economy, and free labor was the answer. 

The Southern U.S. represented the northernmost outpost of the plantation system. This required many slaves to compete with the market in South America. Indians would not do the job, just refusing to be subjected to a slave. Whites would never do the work, because they were above the laboring social class. Instead Kolchin writes, “The early colonists came into a world with pre-modern values, one that lacked concepts of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’”². For the purposes of the commodity argument, one can see that the cruelty played a huge part. When a colonist believes that they are better then these foreign people and that these foreign people aren’t actually human. The theme of commodity carries itself to the entrance of the new world. If anyone has ever seen a draft, it was similar except for the outcome. Like a draft, they were bought on physical features and gender. The price of slaves also changed relative to their region of origin in West Africa. Slaves from the Gold Coast were more expensive than any other region. Like a draft, there are signing contracts, but the slave does not get a million dollars and good treatment. Instead they are thrown into a wagon and taken to the plantation were they would live for most of their life if they were lucky enough to get an indentured servitude. Even with an indentured servitude, “Most adults served four or five years, but children often served seven years or more”². These servitude rules were very flexible and sometimes played no role in the longevity of a slave on a plantation. They had no rights because they were not considered humans but rather commodities or goods. 

Another theme seen during the Atlantic slave trade but seen more in America, is the role of race. What role did Race play in slavery? Did it gave the White people a reason to treat them differently? The enslaved were a different color and had many different physical features (lips, noses, hair structure, etc.). Kolchin writes that the “English were struck by differences between themselves and Africans, and negative stereotypes of Africans helped shape race relations in America during the early years of slavery”². They were taken off the boat, completely naked and in chains, for the Americans to see them. They looked like aliens to the colonists, because they were beaten up and very sick. Due to these conditions, Americans believed, “slavery was their natural state”². The slaves had no chance to prove that they have morals as well. Since Africans believed in a different religion, they were considered Heathens, giving Whites one more reason to oppress them. Mutual causation (Race and Slavery come hand in hand) is the belief of many historians. Phillip Bruce believed Africans came to America as slaves but James Ballagh contested Bruce’s ideals with his own. Ballagh believes that they came as servants, but the actual enslavement of Africans did not occur until the 1660’s³. The answer is not which came first but that it was mutual causation and that “Racial prejudice and the Negro’s lowly position are widely accepted as constantly reinforcing each other”³. 

  There is no question that the enslaved Africans were commodities. Going back to the comparison made in the first paragraph, slavery is a total institution. They are compared with the Jews in the Holocaust because once a person became a captive (placed on the boat), you were always a captive. They could not get out of this institution without risking it all, only to escape and most likely get caught again. They could not escape and be seen like a prisoner. They would have to hide out for years. The enslaved people (whether prisoners of war, thieves, the kidnapped, and children) were given no rights coming across the Atlantic and when arriving in the New World. A country built on liberty gave the slaves who formed it no freedom. The enslaved Africans provided an economy that was bustling in the seventieth century. When the enslaved are finally let free, they become the lowest of social classes. They become shunned by the whites and cannot get jobs other than another laboring job. Some got land, but did not have the slaves to support a business. Some would go back to the plantation and become a servant. Unquestionably so, the slave trade built America and is the reason why America eventually got independence from Great Britain. 

Bibliography

Peter Kolchin. American Slavery (New York: Hill and Wang, 2003)

Stephanie Smallwood. Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007) 

Thomas Holt and Elsa Brown. Major Problems in African American History (New York and Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company 2000)