Roots And Slavery

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 11th grade October 2001

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ROOTS PAPER Slavery was one the most brutal periods of time for any certain group in American history. It started as early as the 1500's and was not legally ended until the late 1800's. During this period the impact was obvious, it effected every aspect of each individual involved. Slaves were literally stolen and sold away from their families. Physically they were treated as if they were not human. Slaves were chained together and packed on ships. These ships later became infested with disease. The result was that many of the soon to be slaves didn't make it to America. The unlucky ones that did survive were of ten beaten and whipped because they couldn't understand the commands of the whites. White people saw blacks as stupid but strong workers and felt that the Africans were made to be slaves. Whites believed that slavery would be a good thing for the Africans because they would be exposed to Christianity and away from the cannibalism that whites thought existed among the Africans.

Emotionally the Africans were treated like they didn't have any feelings. They were inferior at all times. In some cases slaves built good relationships even friendships but they were never on equal grounds among the whites. They were told that they were dumb, ignorant, uncivilized, and inferior among probably an unlimited amount of other negative things. Socially the slaves had no power what so ever. White people refused to teach the slaves how to read and write because knowledge is power and the whites didn't want to give them any power. Blacks addressed the whites as master. To the whites the slaves were property not people. This was stated in the Dred Scott decision, which stated that exactly.

As I said at the beginning slavery effected blacks in...