Authorizing Sale Of Enslav Girl Named Esther Analysis

No other force has been able to continually divide Americans as racism has. Discrimination against people of colour is a problem we face today and its origins date back to the nations very beginning. Early European settlers grossly mistreated, murdered and, attempted to enslave Native Americans. Soon after they began capturing and enslaving African Americans. Slave owners treated their slaves as their property. They would use, buy and sell them as they wished; and this was the norm in Colonial America. The following original source is a letter written in 1740 of an owner attempting to sell one of his slaves. The following document gives us an insight on what the owners thought about their slaves and how they saw them as something less than human. The document Letter Authorizing Sale of Enslaved Girl Named Esther was written by Captain Robert Thompson of Charles Town, West Virginia. In the letter, he makes an offer to Edward & John Mayne & Co. of a young …show more content…
This first person perspective of how African slaves were seen by their owners allows us to recognize the dehumanization that was a part of slave life. Their owners saw them as nothing more than his property. Because of the colour of their skin, they would be given no more respect or dignity than that of a farm tool. Their skills would be exploited and their flaws used as a reason to discard them. Capt. Thompson did not see Esther as a young girl, but just as a maid. While he praised her ability to cook and clean, he decided to sell her because she was a child who desperately missed her parents. With no regard for her well-being he attempts to sell her to merchants in Lisbon, Portugal. Since he speaks about her sale with the same regard as he does when discussing agriculture and economics, we can draw the conclusion that Thompson, as well as most other slave owners saw African Americans not as people but as their