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These chapters of Human Bondage are certainly eye-opening to the sheer size of the slave trade in the new world. We have already discussed the complexity with generalizing within native cultures or European colonizers, but these new interactions weave an entirely new web. In the fourth chapter Davis attempts to convey how the many European powers began to involve slavery into daily lives and constructs the argument for the inherent racist nature of slavery in Europe. He says that white Christians found it naturally wrong to enslave other white Christians, but even by simply having darker skin they are more like the “devil.” It seems that religion plays almost as key of a role in justifying slavery in these chapters as it did with subjugation and colonization of the natives in Taylor’s American Colonies. It is also overwhelming to learn how many players were in the African slave trade market, from the Portuguese to the Dutch and how many places African slaves could find landfall after their departure. The mass displacement of persons and the disproportionate amount of males could have had extreme effects on populations in Africa as well. Although Dana mentions that it was commonplace in Africa for enslavement to occur, it was undoubtedly influenced by the high demand the new world was placing on the market.
As to where slaves would find landfall, the enslavement system, labor and life seems to mimic or at least echo colonizations and some of the themes we discussed in class. If I were to generalize, colonies typically attempt to find the most economically sound product and utilize the cheapest labor. This is why many slaves in Brazil and the West Indies would be in the sugar cane industry and why eventually the American South would find cotton to be invaluable to their lifestyle. Even as far as New York slavery would be found in houses and many markets would take place to enhance the economic prowess of the colony. One thing I generally disliked about the reading and disagree with Dana’s point is the quickness with which when discussing slave history, we wish to find the definitive location where slavery was “the worst” or “the best” or where they would have picked for themselves. Slavery was an inherently evil construct and while it is obviously incredibly important to remember and discuss slave conditions in different colonies and areas of the Americas, trying to deduce or argue about who treated slavery worse for what reasons is fruitless and ultimately ties back to how the colonists could abuse and utilize them for economic gains. Davis does an incredibly good job at depicting the lives of slaves in each area of the world and how they were consistently humiliated and degraded and that, in my opinion, should be the history remembered most vividly.