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Chapters four through six of Inhuman Bondage gave an elaborate overview of slavery. As we have discussed in class, the Europeans were very concerned with their economic success. In need of cheap labor, they looked towards enslavement. They could not justify enslaving white people because of a sense of unity and freedom, so they turned to Africa. The color black to them symbolized “depictions of black demons, devils, and torturers.” (79) “By 1820, nearly 10.1 million slaves had departed from Africa for the New World, as opposed to only 2.6 million whites, who had left Europe.” (80) Because of these high numbers, it can be implied that the New World could not have been created without the African slaves. Ironically, these slaves were not necessarily planned to help settle the Americas. People who crossed the ocean at first were just trying to find gold and silver. They did not want to work on the extensive labor jobs, so they needed slaves. Once cash crops became popular, slave labor increased. Sugar and tobacco became such high demand products for the Europeans and that transcended into a need to transport millions of African slaves to the New World. The slave trade ripped Africa of men. The population was left dwindling, and despite the government officials making lots of money, Africa did not experience a huge economy boost.
One part of Chapter 4 that interested me was the comparison of Africans to Indians. The Europeans acted paternalistic towards the Indians, but they “dealt with the Africans as equals.” (88) The Africans had technology. They possessed ships and could attack the Europeans. The Europeans had to provide ceremonial gifts and to pay fees in order to anchor in Africa. It was disheartening to read about how slaves were taking into custody. People would sell out their fellow friends and the government would sentence people to slavery just to make a profit. In the Americas, African slaves were preferred over Indians because they were “familiar with large-scale agriculture, labor discipline, and making iron or even steel tools.” (99) Also, later on, chapter 6 discusses how not enough attention is paid to this complicated relationship. Indians would help track down fugitive slaves, and some even sold slaves themselves.
Drawing on my classmate’s point in The Great Complexity of the Slave Trade, slavery should not have been compared when it was worst or better. Slavery was wrong in general. Innocent Africans got ripped from their homeland and forced onto horrid living conditions. Whites justified this because they felt superior to them. What is extremely ironic is that a supposedly “free society was made possible by black slave labor.” (102) The Europeans left Europe because they felt confined and wanted freedom, and they took away the freedom of many in this new land. Some, including the Quakers were very against slavery. The Quakers compared “those who were oppressed for conscience sake with these oppressed who are a black colour.” (126)