Price McGinnis
September 25, 2014
History 205 – Slavery in the United States
Dr. McKinney
The De-Humanization Atrocity
The United
States, a nation founded on equality, liberty, and the pursuit happiness, a
nation that has brought forth many technological and social advances through
the years, has long been a nation of strength and fortitude both for its
citizens and other nations. Yet, for a nation so predicated on these principles
of equality, generosity, and fair treatment, one black eye remains on America
and the foundation of this great nation, slavery. Slavery is a gruesome and
horrendous institution that exploits other human beings for labor. Slave owners,
over the course of the history of slavery attempt to de-humanize the slaves and
turn them into commodities. From tearing apart families, to the harsh and
unusual treatment of the slaves on the voyage across the Atlantic, people go
from unique individuals with family bonds and multiple friendships to a number
on a piece of paper. De-humanization is a problem that arises from slavery and
one of the main themes throughout its history.
Slavery and the process of the
commodification and de-humanization began a long time before the creation of
the nation we now know as the United States. However, the United States might
never have even been established if slavery had not found its way to the shores
of the east coast. Slavery was a very lucrative and profitable business
especially for the slave traders of Europe, who would purchase slaves from
nation-states in Africa. Because slavery and the amount of money made from
slavery is based upon the sheer volume of slaves bought and sold, the Slave
traders would actively attempt to store as many slaves in the cargo ships as
they could. In Stephanie Smallwood’s Saltwater
Slavery Smallwood states that, “On more than one level, stretching that
capacity to the utmost was key to a slave ship’s profitability.”[1]
This statement helps brings to life just how the slave traders view the slaves,
not as humans at all, but merely as marks on a ledger whose sole purpose is to provide
a positive income at the end of the month. Slave traders and ship captains have
no regard for the human behind this number either. A few mortalities mean
nothing to them as long as profits are high.
Just as Smallwood discusses how slaves are
viewed as profit, she also claims that, “purchasing ‘in large numbers’ and
dealing in ‘multitudes’ of captives transformed the very nature of captivity.”[2] This
captivity consists of slaves being packed into cargo ships as tightly as
possible. Smallwood states, “Because human beings were treated as inanimate
objects, the number of bodies stowed aboard a ship was limited only by the
physical dimensions and configuration of those bodies.”[3]
These two statements from Smallwood illustrate just how little the slave owners
care about the slaves who are on the boat. The reason is because they did not
view the slaves as human at all, the tight packing procedures expedited the
process of de-humanization by treating the slaves like any other product to be
shipped such as wheat, corn, or salt.
While the way the slaves are physically
arranged in the boat helps contribute to de-humanization, the way the slaves
are torn from their social circles, including their families, religious groups,
and friends also contributes to how slaves are de-humanized. Slave traders
actively seek out the most efficient to way to de-humanize human beings, and
tearing them away form the people they love proves to be the easiest way. Smallwood
says, “A collective of people suddenly torn from participation in these and
other domains of social life, the slave cargo was, necessarily, a novel and
problematic social configuration”[4] in
regards to problems that arise from dismantling the intricate social structures
the slaves know before they are taken away to a new land full of unknown horror
and tragedy. In Major Problems in
African-American History Volume 1: From Slavery to Freedom, 1619-1877
Oladuah Equiano, who is an Ibo, brings this horror and tragedy of losing his
family to life with the story of his capture. He describes he and his sister
being taken away, “and the only comfort we had was being in one another’s arms
all that night, and bathing each other with our tears.”[5] Even
amidst this traumatic experience of being ripped from his home, Equiano finds
comfort in his sister, the only thing that is familiar to him. However, this
comfort wouldn’t last as he states, “The next day proved a greater sorrow than
I had yet experienced; for my sister and I were then separated.”[6]
The slave traders and slave capturers not only separate but seek to destroy
familial ties, as seen here in Equiano’s story, to help further de-humanize and
make human beings a commodity.
Slavery is a hideous and repulsive
institution in which one human being owns another. “How can this even be possible?”
the world constantly wonders. The answer is simple, de-humanization and the
process of making human beings a commodity. Treating slaves as if they are just
a product to be packed into a cramped, rancid boat with no regard for human well-being
is one of the ways slave traders de-humanize other human beings. Slave traders
also reduce the human beings they are selling to simple marks in a ledger, with
the hope of making a profit. Perhaps the greatest and most horrendous way
slaves are de-humanized is through the dismemberment of family and community. For
now, slavery has been outlawed in the United States, however, human trafficking
is still a real problem Americans face today, and to help end this problem, we
should look back at our own history of slavery and prepare ourselves to combat
this wretched institution.
[1] Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater
Slavery (Harvard University Press 2008), 71
[2] Smallwood, Saltwater
Slavery 31.
[3] Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater
Slavery (Harvard University Press 2008), 68.
[4] Smallwood, Saltwater
Slavery 101
[5] Thomas C. Holt and Elsa Barkley Brown, Major Problems in African-American History Volume 1: From Slavery to
Freedom, 1619-1877 (Houghton Mifflin Company 2000), 50.
[6]
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