Venture Smith Thesis

In the year 1791 Benjamin Banneker had already made a name for himself in the newly established country of America. He was a very educated man (i.e. was a farmer, astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, and author) for only being a first generation free man. His was filled to the brim with passion on the matters of slavery and wasn’t afraid to take his stand on the issue. He saw no problem in directly addressing the man who wrote the start to our country. In his letter to Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Banneker offers a series of arguments against the institution of slavery.

But I refused to speak that name. there was nothing united about a nation that said all men were created equal, but that kept my people in chains” (311). Slavery is a topic that can never get too much media as it is a dark passage in human history, one that should be

The United States of America is, and continues to be, associated in many people’s minds with freedom. A handful of individuals between 1400-1800 CE can be held accountable for this conceptualization of American Freedom. Some men such as Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson aided or attempted to aid the African slaves imported to the British colonies during the 18th century in there fight for freedom. Meanwhile a large portion of the white population in the colonies was being denied basic civil liberties and omitting John and Abigail Adams no one seemed to care. One man in this time appears to have no concern for the freedoms of any group of people, including his subjects.

On a dark rainy summer night in 1886, Reverend George C. Haddock returned his rented buggy after a trip to Greenville, Iowa. Haddock noticed a crowd gathered outside of the stables in Sioux City, Iowa. He inquired with the man working if someone had asked for him. The man replied affirmatively and warned the preacher to be careful. Haddock responded “I can take care of myself, and them too.”

Slavery started in North America soon after permanent settlements were established. The first slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Slavery abolition efforts began more than a century later. Samuel Sewall was a judge, author, and merchant living in Massachusetts. In 1700, he published The Sin of Slaveholding.

8). Most of these

In 1607, the first wave of colonial settlers arrived in Virginia and began to establish Jamestown. Many of the new settlers came from wealthy families never performing a day of manual labor. With agricultural farming, being the revenue source of the new colonial settlers there would soon be a great demand for labor. Contracts of indentures were expiring and with much devastation in England, there was a shortage of English servants.

In the prologue, President Obama states, “America was made by ordinary people; who kept their moral compass pointed straight and true when the way seemed treacherous, the climb seemed steep, and the future seemed uncertain” (Movie). However, as captivating as this statement is, America: The Story of Us - Episode One: Rebels presents United States history in a manner that largely avoids controversial or sensitive events and blurs the line between fact and fiction. Large portions of history, such as the effects of religion and elitist control, are exempted. These omissions significantly impacted the development of America, and shaped it into what it is today. This is all done in an attempt to generate profit and glorify the American story, resulting

4.) What

Addressing the Address to the Colonization Society WIlliam Lloyd Garrison in his speech, Address to the Colonization Society, asserts that slavery in America is at the fault of the entire population, and it needs to be put to an end in a strategic, but time efficient, manner. Garrison supports his claim by utilizing logos, cumulative sentences, and appealing to pathos through a focus on both patriotism and religion. The author’s purpose is to show that the slavery is a wrongdoing by the entirety of America so that the North may realize by not actively pressing for an end of slavery, they are essentially just as bad as the individuals that own slaves. The author writes in determined tone for the Colonization Society. William Lloyd Garrison

1. Authenticity is sometimes used a criterion for evaluating an autobiography. Simply put, some would state that a good autobiography is factually accurate. While veracity certainly deserves merit, exaggerated descriptions or even manipulated truths hold value as well, as they can reveal inform the reader of circumstances unique to the author and his or her relation to a collective, society, and an era, thereby providing a personalized voice to a previously voiceless individual. This is particularly true of slave narratives such as The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.

“The South grew, but it did not develop,” is the way one historian described the South during the beginning of the nineteenth century because it failed to move from an agrarian to an industrial economy. This was primarily due to the fact that the South’s agricultural economy was skyrocketing, which caused little incentive for ambitious capitalists to look elsewhere for profit. Slavery played a major role in the prosperity of the South’s economy, as well as impacting it politically and socially. However, despite the common assumption that the majority of whites in the South were slave owners, in actuality only a small minority of southern whites did in fact own slaves. With a population of just above 8 million, the number of slaveholders was only 383,637.

The author, Douglas R. Egerton, has his M.A. and Ph.D. from Georgetown University. His grandparents were slaveholders and believed that slaves were property. He became interested in race relations because of grandparents and the television series “Roots”. He specifically concentrates on race relations in the American South. He is now a history professor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

After learning about the cruelties of the slave trade, and about how the immense profits affected Britain, I became curious about why the British public would choose to end slavery. If it was so beneficial to them, then why stop? I decided to use this topic for my assignment so that I could find more information about why the slave trade was abolished. When researching this, I found it intriguing that many of the factors that ended the slave trade were to do with people, rather than financial gain. I enjoyed using the abolition of the slave trade as my assignment topic, as it allowed me to learn surprising facts about the late 16th- early 18th centuries.

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