Treatment Of Slavery In America

During the mid-1800s, slavery was growing issue throughout the Southern states of America. Slaves were being viewed as property and being forced into auctions to be bought by masters who were going to put them into hard labor six days a week from sunrise to sunset. Usually the African Americans living and working for masters were either born into slavery on plantations or captured from their homes in Africa and sold to slave traders. In the movie, Amistad, which was directed by Steven Spielberg, the treatment of slaves throughout the journey on the Middle Passage and how the slaves were beaten on the way from Africa was presented.
Even though slavery was accepted by the Constitution of the United States, slavery was an immoral problem that began to separate the country into two because slaves were not viewed as human beings, treated inhumane by …show more content…
Not only were slaves forced to work on plantations and for masters unwillingly, but most Americans also did not view them as human beings. For example, in scene two of Amistad, Baldwin says, “All of the claims here…speak to the issue of ownership.” When Baldwin approached Tappan about the captives, he believed that the Africans he would be defending were pieces of property that different parties were attempting to claim. In addition, slave auctions that were held in America also displayed how several Americans viewed African Americans. For example, during an organized auction “‘The buyers, who were present to the number of about two hundred, clustered around the platform; while the Negroes, who were not likely to be immediately wanted, gathered into sad groups in the background to watch the progress of the selling in which they were so sorrowfully interested’”(Slave Auction, 1859). This quote states that the slaves were being sold like property and were not viewed as human beings by the people who were buying them and forcing them into hard