Slavery, the practice of owning human beings for personal gain has been engraved in American Culture. A practice once foreign to the land of the free, slavery was brought to current day the United States in large part to the transatlantic economy in the seventeenth century. Before slavery was added to the trade system and economy, the economy was fueled mainly by sugar, rice, and tobacco(Sheets 33). By adding slavery to the economy, there was much to gain for those who participated in the practice. Yet, in order for traders to gain, much had to be taken from slaves. Lives, liberty, and happiness, all things taken away from a being that is now considered property. The topic of slavery was not one of agreement, but one of differentiating views.
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Yet, it was through the experimentation with different forms of labor, which included using poorer whites as indentured servants. It was not until Edmund White’s letter to Joseph Morton that the idea of solely using a race-based slave-labor agricultural system that highlighted the benefits to having “negro” servants instead of white ones. Upon enslavement, many blacks began to realize right away that the life as a slave is not a life for anyone. Many would agree that the lifestyle is a degrading one, stripping a man, women, or child of everything. As David Walker, a man born free, has said that “we are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began(Walker 277). Even born a free male of color, Walker knows, sees, and is aware of the condition for other slaves within North America. The view of slavery in America from the eyes of a black man was a scary one. Joseph Taper’s “Letter by a Fugitive Slave”, Taper expresses his discontent toward living in slavery-ridden North America opposed to Canada. Taper said, “I have enjoyed more pleasure within one month here than in all my life in the land of bondage….there are none to molest [us] or make [us] afraid”(Taper 219). The practice of slavery was frowned upon. Many born as first generation African-Americans, were unaware of a life better than that of a slave, as Walker had gone on to say that those who are “too ignorant to see beyond their noses” feel as though that “there is no use in trying to condition(Walker
Yet, it was through the experimentation with different forms of labor, which included using poorer whites as indentured servants. It was not until Edmund White’s letter to Joseph Morton that the idea of solely using a race-based slave-labor agricultural system that highlighted the benefits to having “negro” servants instead of white ones. Upon enslavement, many blacks began to realize right away that the life as a slave is not a life for anyone. Many would agree that the lifestyle is a degrading one, stripping a man, women, or child of everything. As David Walker, a man born free, has said that “we are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began(Walker 277). Even born a free male of color, Walker knows, sees, and is aware of the condition for other slaves within North America. The view of slavery in America from the eyes of a black man was a scary one. Joseph Taper’s “Letter by a Fugitive Slave”, Taper expresses his discontent toward living in slavery-ridden North America opposed to Canada. Taper said, “I have enjoyed more pleasure within one month here than in all my life in the land of bondage….there are none to molest [us] or make [us] afraid”(Taper 219). The practice of slavery was frowned upon. Many born as first generation African-Americans, were unaware of a life better than that of a slave, as Walker had gone on to say that those who are “too ignorant to see beyond their noses” feel as though that “there is no use in trying to condition(Walker