I am disgusted by the thought of
slavery itself. I don’t know how there are some cruel individuals who believe
that they posses the authority to mistreat a human being. Whether it’s physical
or emotional, I strongly believe that it is unacceptable. It is a shame that historians of Europe
and the United States largely ignore the significance that slavery has had in
world history and the development of capitalism. African American’s had a huge
impact in history, I cant imagine how drastically different our country and
world would be if it wasn’t for the crucial labor that millions of innocent
African Americans endured.
It
is clearly evident that if it wasn’t for the labor of African immigrants, and
all immigrants overall, the world would be completely different. As chapter two
mentioned, immigrants were forced to indenture themselves to labor for some
planter or company and they were taken advantage of. Slaves weren’t any
different; they were forced to work endless hours manufacturing rum, sugar
cane, cotton, etc. and were treated as if they were nothing. I can’t believe
how West Indian planters decided that it was more expedient to work their
slaves to death and then buy more. It seems as if the slave owners viewed
African American slaves like a shoe, they would use them until they were
completely warn out then they would simply throw them away and buy a
replacement.
Immigrants made the largest
contribution to the capitalist economy all over the world. I find it to be a racial
discrimination that historians simply ignore black history, not only black
immigrants who were slaves but also have not paid much attention to black
immigrants from the Caribbean. It’s amazing how by the end of the colonial
period, roughly every fifth American was either an African immigrant or
descendent of one. It’s truly unfortunate that the evidence and material
required for writing more about African American history doesn’t even exist
since social historians want literate proof. However, African American’s were
nonliterate people, they could not express how they felt in letters or diaries,
the majority of them didn’t even know how to read or write because they didn’t
have the “right” to be educated. White slave traders wrote the only contemporary
documents generated about slaves. The slave owners obviously didn’t realize and
didn’t care to know about the hell that the slaves were going through.
I
cannot believe the “Myth of the Negro Past”!!! How can people actually believe
that Africa was a cultural desert that had no contributions to the rest of the
world and that slaves were “primitive savages without even the vestiges of a
viable culture” and that whatever Africans might have had in the Old World had
been completely vanished? It is more than evident that Africa has a cultural
diversity like any other country. The only reason why African slaves didn’t
practice their cultural beliefs is because the slave traders prohibited them
to. The amount of lost culture is
very unfortunate. Can you imagine how many different rituals we could have
witnessed if thousands of slaves would have been able to practice their
cultural routines?
I’m
amazed that African slave trade existed for over four centuries. Nearly ten
million persons were kidnapped from Africa and most were sold in the America’s.
It is thanks to these innocent slaves that we now have a capitalist economy and
great manufacturing system. These individuals have been taken advantage of and
the least historians can do is give them recognition on their contribution in
world history.
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