an essay on dramatic poesy

slavery

In America, slavery began in the 17th century. Slaves usually consisted of women and men between the ages of 18 and 35, although children were enslaved as well. These men, women, and children were then forced into portholes where many fell into depression or tried resisting and were therefore killed. The remaining living were then sold and forced to work at long hours and had no rights to vacations, wages, marriages, or property. Some slave owners would threaten to beat their slaves if they resisted or refused to do the labor they were ordered. If a slave was beaten, they couldn't fight back or try to go to court for it, they were required to simply endure it. Also, many families were forced to split up and were then sold to different slave owners. Although women and children usually were aloud to stay together. Many slaves would find strength to endure the hardship of it all through religion, but some also began to be rebellious to their slave owners.

They would work slower, claim to not know how to do certain things, "accidentally" break equipment in order to slow the work process down, and a lot of slaves attempted to run away and find a free state in which they could become free. Some of the slaves that attempted to run away, would escape through a series of trails known as the underground railroad. It had many people who were willing to hide slaves in their homes and they would conduct them to the next station or safe house until they could reach the free North. Many of the slaves did not survive the hardships of the trails and some of them were caught and returned to their owners. But this did not stop slaves from attempting to gain...