How to Make a Slave of Conviction

Essay by karenbearlyUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, March 2007

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For the 18th century, the enslavement of black peoples was an accepted and even conventional practice in America. Yet the idea and reality of the conditions and confinement of these peoples was not as settling to the slaves themselves. As a result there were many occasions when the slaves decided to stand up against their oppressors. Many factors come into play as to underlying causes of such revolts. Rodney D. Coates states in his book Race and Ethnicity: Across Time, Space, and Discipline that "Black resistance to slavery in the colonial period mounts along with the growth in the number of slaves." He goes on to explain that "Numerous slave plots and insurrections begin in 1687 and extend to 1740, especially in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia." This was also the case with slavery institutions throughout the Caribbean. Author M. K. Bacchus, relays that "slave revolts took place in most major islands of the West Indies...

and became almost endemic during the 18th century in Jamaica where outbreaks occurred on average every five years." With such a disturbance in the progression of these institutions an ingenious solution was vital to their continuing existence. An alleged William Lynch is one man credited to such a solution. He is most noted for a speech given almost three hundred years ago in the year of 1712. Though the exact origins of the speech or the man are unknown, the ideas supporting the content of the speech raise a great clamor throughout the nation today. A "modest" slave owner in the West Indies Lynch seems no doubt a most infamous figure. He is also said to be credited for The Makings of a Slave which is speculated to be the subject of what Fredrick Douglass labeled a "psychological blue print for the perpetuation of...