In 1807, American congressmen ended the Atlantic slave trade, bringing America one step closer to abolishing slavery entirely. However, the Slave Trade Act of 1807 did little to slow slavery’s influence in America. The brand-new cotton gin revived the southern economy during the early 1800’s and intensified the flow of slavery into the west. As a result, slaves were regularly bought, sold, and transported throughout the Cotton Kingdom as desirable commodities, embodying and increasing the southerners’ wealth. Through the dehumanization of African-Americans, the monetary value assigned to slaves, and the mobility of the slave trade, it was evident that slavery was the business of trading people as commodities to further benefit the white
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To illustrate, on auction blocks where they “were stripped, examined, and assigned meaning according to the brutal…slaveholding ideologies” , African-American slaves were dehumanized and “turned into products”. Slaves were denied their unalienable human right to privacy as every detail and flaw were scrutinized to degrade their self-confidence, making them submissive to their masters. Because African-Americas occupied the role of being slaves in American society, they laboriously served their masters like replaceable livestock such as “horses and other cattle” . They were understood to have no virtue or will of their own because of their skin color, making them perfect to control. Furthermore, “[s]lavery…was a system of unchecked brutality, made grotesquely visible on the suffering bodies of the slaves” as the slaveholders used violence to keep their possessions obedient. Slave Josiah Henson described how the one hundred lashes his father received for defending his wife from being raped by their master triggered his father’s mental deterioration into a detached person. Ultimately, dehumanizing the slaves into submission made it easy for the masters to treat them as property as they were “subject to his will in all things…[and had] no shadow of law to protect [them] from insult, violence, or even from death” …show more content…
For example, since slavery’s foundation required the chattel system , a bondage system permitting slaves to be bought and sold like property, each slave was “a person with a price” in a society where people were deemed to be priceless. All slaves became devalued goods when they were assigned a price on the market for slaveholders to buy or trade, exposing slavery as the exchange of immaterial people who were treated unjustly. A slave, Henry Bibb, acknowledged how he was a replaceable commodity when he recalled the prices his countless owners sold him for when he was no longer desirable. Additionally, slaveholders collected slaves, who were viewed as valuable possessions, to display their wealth. Frederick Law Olmsted opposed slavery because cotton profits did not improve infrastructure, like in the North, but accumulated in the bodies of the slaves who “represented a thousand dollars”. Southerners invested their money in buying slaves since they improved their cotton output and made them wealthier. Because every slave was given a price, the slave trade transformed them from human beings into valuable trophies for slaveholders to
To illustrate, on auction blocks where they “were stripped, examined, and assigned meaning according to the brutal…slaveholding ideologies” , African-American slaves were dehumanized and “turned into products”. Slaves were denied their unalienable human right to privacy as every detail and flaw were scrutinized to degrade their self-confidence, making them submissive to their masters. Because African-Americas occupied the role of being slaves in American society, they laboriously served their masters like replaceable livestock such as “horses and other cattle” . They were understood to have no virtue or will of their own because of their skin color, making them perfect to control. Furthermore, “[s]lavery…was a system of unchecked brutality, made grotesquely visible on the suffering bodies of the slaves” as the slaveholders used violence to keep their possessions obedient. Slave Josiah Henson described how the one hundred lashes his father received for defending his wife from being raped by their master triggered his father’s mental deterioration into a detached person. Ultimately, dehumanizing the slaves into submission made it easy for the masters to treat them as property as they were “subject to his will in all things…[and had] no shadow of law to protect [them] from insult, violence, or even from death” …show more content…
For example, since slavery’s foundation required the chattel system , a bondage system permitting slaves to be bought and sold like property, each slave was “a person with a price” in a society where people were deemed to be priceless. All slaves became devalued goods when they were assigned a price on the market for slaveholders to buy or trade, exposing slavery as the exchange of immaterial people who were treated unjustly. A slave, Henry Bibb, acknowledged how he was a replaceable commodity when he recalled the prices his countless owners sold him for when he was no longer desirable. Additionally, slaveholders collected slaves, who were viewed as valuable possessions, to display their wealth. Frederick Law Olmsted opposed slavery because cotton profits did not improve infrastructure, like in the North, but accumulated in the bodies of the slaves who “represented a thousand dollars”. Southerners invested their money in buying slaves since they improved their cotton output and made them wealthier. Because every slave was given a price, the slave trade transformed them from human beings into valuable trophies for slaveholders to