While reading chapters 4 and 5 of David Brion Davis\u2019s Inhuman Bondage, I found that I was able to appreciate Davis\u2019s style and delivery of information more than the passages from Alan Taylor\u2019s American Colonies. Although several of my classmates may disagree, I believe that Davis\u2019s writing is easier to read and absorb than Taylor\u2019s. <\/p>\n

One of the topics included in the reading that stood out to me was that not all forms of slavery were equal. While learning about the Atlantic Slave Trade and slavery in the \u201cnew world\u201d in high school, there was little emphasis placed on the sharp differences between picking cotton, making sugar, or growing tobacco. Through this generalization of labor, it was difficult to understand which tasks were particularly arduous. In chapter 5, however, Taylor depicts the painstaking process of sugar cultivation in vivid detail. Taylor describes sugar production as having \u201cfar exceeded anything slaves encountered when cultivating tobacco, cotton, rice, or indigo\u201d (108-109). Taylor essentially said that if slaves could pick their job, working in the sugar industry would be their last choice. <\/p>\n

Another portion of the reading that stood out to me was how the Europeans justified the enslavement of other people. One particular way is the fact that Africans did not practice traditional European religions led Europeans to view them as inferior and worthy of being enslaved. Some people believed that by enslaving Africans and converting them to Christianity, the African people became civilized. Perhaps the most obvious difference between Africans and Europeans was race. Africans dark complexion was seen negatively in the eyes of Europeans, who associated black with \u201cdemons, devils, and tortures.\u201d This simple but blatant difference enabled Europeans to frame Africans as the \u201cultimate outsiders\u201d (79). Perceptions of Africans as inferior and foreign led to the acceptance of their roles as slaves by Europeans and resulted in African slaves becoming a social normality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While reading chapters 4 and 5 of David Brion Davis\u2019s Inhuman Bondage, I found that I was able to appreciate Davis\u2019s style and delivery of information more than the passages from Alan Taylor\u2019s American Colonies. Although several of my classmates may disagree, I believe that Davis\u2019s writing is easier to read and absorb than Taylor\u2019s. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Inhuman Bondage, Chapters 4 and 5:”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[93,274,295],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-davis","tag-slavery","tag-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}