African And Native American Slavery Essay, Research Paper

African and Native American Slavery

Scot Ferguson

11-12-96

period 2

The 1500’s, a time of discovery, was when the Europeans came to dominate

most of the New World. The Europeans traveled to Africa and captured Africans

to help develop their land and satisfy their need for power. I feel that the

treatment of the Indians and Africans by the Europeans was completely

unjustifiable. While the Indians and Africans were less technologically

advanced and the Europeans were uneducated, in this particular field, nothing

can compensate for the actions of the Europeans.

As Europeans began to settle new lands they began their exploration of

the foreign worlds. What they found was the opposite of what they expected.

They found what they thought was a new breed of humans. In reality they were

just Native Americans. These Indians were less technologically advanced than

the Europeans. They also worshipped different and multiple gods and ate

different foods. Europeans saw this as barbaric, so they treated them as

barbarians.

In the beginning Native Americans hadn’t the faintest idea of what the

Europeans had in mind when they said trade. They figured that when the White

Man came and showed all that hospitality they meant it. Of course, they didn’t,

the Europeans captured the Indians to be used as slaves. They were also

slaughtered and raped because of resistance to leave their land. If any Indians

refused to leave their land they would be killed. The women were raped for sick

and disgusting reasons. Europeans didn’t feel that the women, or men for that

matter, were worth anything as humans so they were beat and raped without any

thought about what they might be doing.

As we watched the movie Roots, I noticed a part in the movie where they

were on a ship and a man brings in a black woman, who was a slave. The man

offered her to the ship’s captain and referred to her as a belly warmer. That

got me to thinking what could be going on in that man’s head as he said that.

When I heard that I was shocked that a man could treat someone like that.

People have feelings and cannot be treated as objects. Maybe the Europeans didn’

t realize that these people were, in fact people, and that drove them to this

awful conclusion that they could treat people this way.

As Europeans settled their land and began to build houses, farms and

plantations, they realized that they needed servants to assist them in their

farming. So people would travel to Africa capture blacks and then sell them to

merchants and plantation owners. They would then beat them and put them to long,

grueling work. They would treat them as they did the Indians, and for much the

same reason. They figured that since the blacks were black and appeared to be

less advanced then they must be less significant.

People of the next generation whose parents owned slaves and grew up

thinking slaves were okay is understandable. I just don’t feel that anything

could justify treating the slaves they way they did. they had absolutely no

respect for them. They would savagely beat them to get them to work harder than

humanly possible and they would rape the women. I don’t think that I will ever

know how any one could do such a thing.

I conclusion I strongly feel that the way Europeans treated people that

were less technologically advanced is completely and utterly wrong. It is

difficult to contemplate what was going on in their heads as they were capturing

them, killing them and even raping them. I can not believe how they could think

that the color of someone’s ones skin or religious beliefs could make them less

human. I am glad I live in a country based on the belief that all men are

created equal.