How To Degrade Slavery In America

Slavery existed in America since its time under the British rule. The tradition continued until about a hundred years after its foundation when the civil war ended the last standing slave institution in North America. Despite its’ tragic end, slavery was very successful in the Southern United States. Slave owners were able to control their slaves even though they outnumbered them a hundred to one. Slaves also rarely succeeded in running away; a testament to how strict and well run slavery was in the South. Slave owners were able to keep a tight leash on their property and amass fortunes. This is all due to the physical violence, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse southern whites inflicted on slaves in order to subjugate and degrade them. The …show more content…
In the beginning of slavery in North America, a slave was treated relatively equal to a poor white man (Brenne and Innes 82). However, as slavery progressed and evolved, slaves were treated as far lessor beings that were born to be beaten and enslaved. This learned behavior was passed from generation to generation, each time getting worse than the last, until it reached the level of cruelty it was right on the cusps of the civil war. White males were taught from birth to subjugate and degrade African-American slaves. Southern “young masters are often tempted and seduced from the path of virtue, from the associations in which they were place” (Cartwright 139). African-American slaves were taught that all they will ever feel is pain and suffering (Jones 91). This dehumanization of African-American slaves made it easier for slave owners to control them. The emotional abuse slave owners instilled on their slaves was used to reinforce and emphasize the fact that African-American slaves were not human beings but property that their masters could use in any …show more content…
If slaves don’t believe in Christianity, then they are just heathens who deserve to be enslaved and neglected. However, if a slave does believe in God, then they are automatically human beings as well as children of God who have rights that no man is allowed to take (Cartwright 141). By denying African-American slaves religion, slave owners are able to keep them in the dark as godless heathens that are beneath all white men. Nat Turner, a man believed to be a prophet by his fellow slaves, was seen as nothing more than a fraud and an inferior being (Nat Turner 136). Slave owners also denied religion to their slaves as a way of controlling them. If a slave owner didn’t believe in God, then their slaves weren’t allowed to either (Jones