Social Effects Of Slavery

One of the most scarring events in all of American history was the enslavement of Africans. This was a turning point in history that left long-term economic, political, and social effects, some of which have lasted to this day. Slave systems of labor were cruel and traumatizing, and represent a scar in American history.

When people mention slaves, most people’s original idea of a slave would be an African. However, before there were Africans slaves as the colonists’ source of labor, other resources were used. One of the first forms of labor used by the European colonists was the indentured white servants. This was the process of an agent paying for the trip of a European to come to the New World, and in return, that European would …show more content…
The social effects left behind were much greater. When thousands of Africans were brought into the western hemisphere, they may have left their home, but they didn’t leave their culture. Cultural diffusion occurred during this time, changing the European traditions as they became to change and grow. African traditions also began to change by the way of the Europeans - each of these groups of people influenced each other. However, this was not the only social change that went on during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Europeans had needed a way to justify their actions towards the Africans as slaves. They had used the idea that Africans weren’t Christian, and that anyone who wasn’t a Christian was supposedly subhuman and did not have to be treated like a person. Africans had a loophole, though; they could convert to being a Christian. Europeans then had to turn to one thing: skin color. They wanted to justify their reasons for treating Africans the way they did, and what better way to make someone subhuman than to discriminate them? Skin color became the identifying factor of a slave in North America, someone who didn’t need to be treated like a human. Slaves were cast into lowly roles by the white Europeans, and could do nothing to prove that they were of the same material as their owners. Every word, thought, idea, about slaves became negative in order for people to have no emotion towards those in which they treated like a dog. “The slave was allowed no further opportunity to prove the white stereotype wrong” (Nash), and even when they could, when slavery had ended, nothing would stop the racial prejudice against African Americans. To this day, people treat African Americans differently, as if they have done something wrong when their ancestors were the ones who acted cruelly to those who worked for him or her. The white racial prejudice that was created in America during