Homework slave trade PDF

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Dr. Johnson
Homework assignment from discussion group on slave trade....

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Abigail Osborn 10/13/17

Slavery completely abolished any dynamics of freedom the slaves had. Not only were the slaves stripped of any fundamental rights such as reading, writing, paid work, and such of the like, but they were beaten, starved, sold, raped, or sexual assaulted on the whim of their masters. Slaves in early America were not even viewed as human beings. This is apparent through Gustavus Vassa’s autobiography on the slave narrative in the late eighteenth-century. Vassa’s autobiography was written to provide criticism on the slave trade with examples from his personal experience. Vassa was at sea during the French and Indian War and was a naval officer’s personal servant and then fought during the war, because of his close relationship with his master he assumed he would be set free when they reached land but instead was met with crippling grief when those expectations were not met. Vassa’s master taught him how to read and write and shave and teachings from the bible and was kind to Vassa to get his unwavering devotion, which worked- Vassa begin to spend what little money he had on his master and loved him. “He always treated me with the greatest kindness and reposed me in an unbounded confidence; he even paid attention to my morals and would never suffer me to deceive him or tell lies, of which he used to tell me the consequences; and that if I did so God would not love me; so that from all this tenderness, I had never once supposed, in all my dreams of freedom, that he would think of detaining me any longer than I wished.” This quote shows how even though Vassa believed he was going to be set free because of his master’s kindness in the moment, that slave master really don’t care about the slave themselves. All slave master’s care about is making money, that is why the slaves had no dynamics of freedom....