African Americans were happy when they were slaves? George Ftzhugh says “The negro slaves of the South are the Happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world.” Negroes didn’t have to think how to make money, they have house to sleep, and they do not worried about food. “In African or the West Indies, [slave] would become idolatrous, savage and cannibal, or be devoured by savages and cannibals. At the north he would freeze or starve,” George Fitzhugh says. “As the nineteenth century progressed, some southern states enacted laws to prevent the mistreatment of slaves, and their material living conditions improved,” Eric Foner says. But unfortunately, the happiest slaves were the farthest slaves from freedoms. “Although slavery in Brazil lasted until 1888, over half the population of African descent was already free in 1850. (The comparable figure in the American South was well below 10 percent.)” Slaves were like animals in the zoo. They do can not go anywhere, they have few rights, but they can eat and live without any fears.
John Little, a former slaves wrotes:
they say slaves are happy, because they laugh, and are merry. I myself and three of four others, have received two hundred lashes in the day, and had our feet in fetters; yet, at night, we would sing and dance, and make others laugh at the rattling of our chains. Happy men we must have been! We did it to keep down trouble, and to keep our hearts from being completely broken: that is as true as the gospel! Just look at it,---must not we have been very happy? Yet I have done it myself---I have cut capers in chains.
People who give something tend to think that he did good things for others, but no one knows they really wanted the things or not. No one knows that animals want to stay in the zoo or want to escape. If animals get the skill to speak, the zoo in the world may disappear.
America Past and Present Online - George Fitzhugh, "The Blessings of Slavery" (1857)
It was nice reading your post. The thoughts are aggressive and to the point which really does make for easy understanding. You shed your points about slavery effeciently. I did find it very difficult to read about George Ftzhugh and his view towards the working slave.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion is very close to yours in the sense that "Slaves were like animals in the zoo". In using this visual, you enable the reader to view slaves like animals at the zoo, but not actually viewing the slaves as animals. Although most citizens would view slaves as similar to children, you can not take away from what they actually did for civilization.