Slavery And Empire

Chapter four analyses

Chapter four told about "Slavery and Empire." The thesis point of this chapter was basically to describe the different aspects of life as a slave and what became of it, it told about the significance behind it, and how it developed throughout North America by giving a lot of detailed facts. It started off the very beginning of slavery in Africa and shows how it lead to North America. It tells why the slaves where who they were and the treatment of slaves, an everyday life, and goes all the way through to tell how it was about in North America and why it helped the colony.

The chapter gave a pretty good detailed description on how slavery originated, it originated from Africa, and eventually the North American government sought

large amounts of labor needed and they didn't want to sell themselves to other whites. So they came from African villages where they were kidnapped and brought to slave ships only to be sailed across the Atlantic on The middle Passage to the east coast of North America. The author tells how the conditions on the ship were horrible. Slaves were thrown in on top of each other, were bound by chains and were covered by human waste, blood, and disease. Often enough, slaves would die before even making it to North America because the voyage was too long and the conditions that they were put to deal with were too brutal. The conditions were so bad that some slaves came to the point where they would just jump off of the ship in their own will just to not deal with what they had to deal with.

Once slaves arrived to North America, it didn't get any easier than being on the ship. In America they were treated as live stock and put up for show for buyers to own, and treated as objects, not people with feelings. When they were sold to white Americans, they would be force to work on farms, or plantations in the south, rice plantations, or tobacco farms, and were usually away from family members or other people that they knew. Slaves had it rough, and the owners didn't make anything better, they were treated like objects and at points their owners ruled over them with fear and terror. Fear and terror of the power the owners had over them for example, they would get whipped, burned, beat, raped, tortured, and sometimes even killed. They were forced to work long hours and barely got breaks or any free time. And if they refused to do what they were told then it was up to owner which kind of torture to torture them with.

With their lives pretty much being destroyed of slavery and not being free to do what they want and spend time with their families, the author still mentions how they would still have some fun at night with each other. They were able to sing and dance, tell stories, and carry on rituals from Africa. This was probably the highlight of there days. Some slaves had the opportunity to get married, as they were still enslaved of course. Some even got