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Slave Life In The U.S.

SLAVE LIFE IN THE U.S.
UNTIL 1850

Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual
exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unrelenting
despotism on the one part and the degrading submission on
the other…The parent storms; the child looks on, catches the
lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of
smaller slaves, gives a loose tongue to the worst passions
and thus nursed, educated and daily exercised in tyranny cannot
but be stamped with odious peculiarities.   The man must be
a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved
by such circumstances”.

      Since the earliest point of our nation, blacks were brought here against their will and forced into bondage.   Most had been kidnapped from their villages, their families, their friends and their countries.   From that point on, slavery was seen as normal.   The people of the time saw nothing wrong in owning other “human beings”, as slaves were not viewed as human beings, but as an inferior race.   Because of these thoughts and feelings, Africans were considered the “property” of their owners and therefore, not afforded any of the rights that “white” people were granted under the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.   The Declaration of Independence clearly states:
      “All men are created equal; and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
For the black man, this couldn't have been further from the truth.
Slavery’s Beginnings
Slavery started out very slowly in the Colonies.   The first 20 Africans were brought ashore at Old Point Comfort , VA in 1619, by Dutch traders, who had captured them in a battle with Spanish slave ship and were used   as indentured servants.   The transformation from indentured service to slavery occurred gradually and by 1660, slaves were in bondage for life.   By the time of the American Revolution,...