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Chapter 7 in Inhuman Bondage discusses the impact of slavery in the American Revolution. Whenever I think of the American Revolution, I think of the colonists and Britain. This chapter helped to gain a new insight- the plight of the slaves. One key point the author was trying to make in this chapter is that the colonists were rebelling against Britain for feeling like they were being enslaved, but yet they were enslaving others. “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” (144) I never thought of it this way. It is ironic that the colonists felt that their rights are being infringed upon, when they enslaved Africans. This point truly is one of the most important in the entire chapter, and it drives the entire revolution. It is really persuasive because America is supposed to represent freedom and a new life, yet it doesn’t.
Warfare is a time of chaos for slaves. Slaves can rebel against their owners and escape, or can be enlisted and fight against their enemies. Why would slaves want to fight if in the end they didn’t even receive their liberty? Both sides tried to use slaves in their favor. The colonists didn’t necessarily want the slaves to fight for them, but they were in need of numbers. Britain tried to get slaves to leave their masters and join them. They said that “all slaves captured while they were serving the rebels were to be sold for the benefit of their captors; but all slaves who deserted the rebels were given an assurance that was hardly clear.” (150) Slaves took this as emancipation, and thousands took advantage of it, leaving Georgia’s economy in ruin.
Granted, some colonists realized the ironic nature behind their resentment of Britain. “The period from 1765 to the early 1790s produced countless numbers of tracts, pamphlets, broadsides, sermons, speeches, and editorials that challenged the basic core of slavery: the belief that human beings could be ‘animalized.’ (156) Because of this, the revolutionary war can be seen as the precursor of the Civil War. The North generally was against slavery, and many states even made it illegal. The South was dependent on it. They needed the slaves for their economies, and it even mentioned they would start a war if the government tried to make slavery universally illegal. It was only a matter of time before the two conflicting sides battled again. In my classmate’s post below Democracy and Slavery, they made a very interesting point that the Civil War could possibly have been avoided if the 1784 Continental Congress outlawed slavery in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Ohio. While this is an interesting point, I can’t help but disagree because the other regions of the south were so explicit on their desire for slavery, and that is stated within the text.