conclusion for slavery essay

Slavery Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on slavery.

Slavery is a term that signifies the injustice that is being carried out against humans since the 1600s. Whenever this word comes up, usually people picture rich white people ruling over black people. However, that is not the only case to exist. After a profound study, historians found evidence that suggested the presence of slavery in almost every culture. It was not essentially in the form of people working in the fields, but other forms. Slavery generally happens due to the division of levels amongst humans in a society. It still exists in various parts of the world. It may not necessarily be that hard-core, nonetheless, it happens.

Impact of Slavery

Slavery is one of the main causes behind racism in most of the cultures. It did severe damage to the race relations of America where a rift was formed between the whites and blacks.

The impact of Slavery has caused irreparable damage which can be seen to date. Even after the abolishment of slavery in the 1800s in America, racial tensions remained amongst the citizens.

In other words, this made them drift apart from each other instead of coming close. Slavery also gave birth to White supremacy which made people think they are inherently superior just because of their skin color and descendant.

Talking about the other forms of slavery, human trafficking did tremendous damage. It is a social evil which operates even today, ruining hundreds and thousands of innocent lives. Slavery is the sole cause which gave birth to all this.

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The Aftermath

Even though slavery was abolished over 150 years ago, the scars still remain. The enslaved still haven’t forgotten the struggles of their ancestors. It lives on in their hearts which has made them defensive more than usual. They resent the people whose ancestors brought it down on their lineage.

Even today many people of color are a victim of racism in the 21st century. For instance, black people face far more severe punishments than a white man. They are ridiculed for their skin color even today. There is a desperate need to overcome slavery and all its manifestations for the condition and security of all citizens irrespective of race, religion , social, and economic position .

In short, slavery never did any good to any human being, of the majority nor minority. It further divided us as humans and put tags on one another. Times are changing and so are people’s mindsets.

One needs to be socially aware of these evils lurking in our society in different forms. We must come together as one to fight it off. Every citizen has the duty to make the world a safer place for every human being to live in.

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Despite the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century, the practice is prevalent in the contemporary world. It is estimated that more people are enslaved today than during the few centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. Modern slavery poses a serious challenge to human rights protection worldwide, and many governments as well as international and regional bodies are working towards preventing and combating it.

This course explored the historical origins and forms of slavery from ancient times to the twenty-first century. It also looked at the international legal instruments regulating the prohibition of slavery: international human rights treaties, ILO conventions, as well as regional human rights instruments.

You should now be able to:

• understand the historical origins of slavery as well as examples of slavery
• understand the international legal framework prohibiting slavery
• understand the concept of modern slavery and its various forms
• analyse the applicable law and apply it to a given example/case study
• think critically about human rights aspects of slavery in a variety of contexts and to articulate an independent view
• critically analyse and evaluate proposals for new legislation addressing modern slavery.

If you are unsure about any of these, go back and reread the relevant section(s) of this course.

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Slavery — Slavery Argumentative

Slavery Argumentative

• Categories: Slavery

About this sample

Words: 559 |

Published: Mar 19, 2024

Words: 559 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, historical context, justifications for slavery, critiques of slavery, the legacy of slavery, addressing the legacy.

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Background Essay: The Origins of American Slavery

How did enslaved and free Blacks resist the injustice of slavery during the colonial era?

• I can articulate how slavery was at odds with the principle of justice.
• I can explain how enslaved men and women resisted the institution of slavery.
• I can create an argument supported by evidence from primary sources.
• I can succinctly summarize the main ideas of historic texts.

Essential Vocabulary

Written by: The Bill of Rights Institute

American Slavery in the Colonies

Throughout the colonial era, many white colonists in British North America gradually imposed a system of unfree and coerced labor upon Africans in all the colonies. Throughout the colonies, enslavement of Africans became a racial, lifelong, and hereditary condition. The institution was bound up with the larger Atlantic System of trade and slavery yet developed a unique and diverse character in British North America.

Europeans forcibly brought Africans to the New World in the international slave trade. From the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, European slave ships carried 12.5 million Africans, mostly to the New World. Because of the crowded ships, diseases, and mistreatment, only 10.7 million enslaved Africans landed at their destinations. Almost 2 million souls perished in what a draft of the Declaration of Independence later called an “ execrable commerce.”

Europeans primarily acquired the enslaved Africans from African slave traders along the western coast of the continent by exchanging guns, alcohol, textiles, and a broad range of goods demanded by the African traders. The enslaved were alone, having been separated from their families and embarked on the harrowing journey called the “ Middle Passage ” in chains. They were frightened and confused by their tragic predicament. Some refused to eat or jumped overboard to commit suicide rather than await their fate.

This diagram depicts the layout of a slave ship. (Unknown author – an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791, reprinted in Phyllis M. Martin and Patrick O’Meara (eds.) (1995). Africa third edition. Indiana University Press and James Currey.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Passage#/media/File:Slave_ship_diagram.png

Most Africans in the international trade were bound for the European colonial possessions in the Caribbean and South America. The sugar plantations there were places where disease, climate, and work conditions produced a horrifying death rate for enslaved Africans. The sugar crop was so valuable that it was cheaper to work slaves to death and import replacements.  About 5 percent of the human cargo in the slave trade landed in British North America.

The African-American experience in the 13 colonies varied widely and is characterized by great complexity. The climate, geography, agriculture, laws, and culture shaped the diverse nature of enslavement.

Enslaved Africans in the British North American colonies did share many things in common, however. Slavery was a racial, lifetime and hereditary condition. White supremacy was rooted in slavery as its victims were almost exclusively Africans. It was a system of unfree and coerced labor that violated the enslaved person’s natural rights of liberty and consent. While the treatment of slaves might vary depending on region or the disposition of the slaveholder, slavery was at its core a violent and brutal system that stripped away human dignity from the enslaved. In all the colonies, slaves were considered legal property. In other words, slavery was a great injustice.

Differing climates and economies led to very different agricultural systems and patterns of enslavement across the colonies. The North had mostly self-sufficient farms. Few had slaves, and those that did, had one or two enslaved persons. While the North had some important pockets of large landowners who held larger numbers of slaves such as the Hudson Valley, its farms were generally incompatible with large slaveholding. Moreover, the nature of wheat and corn crops generally did not support slaveholding the same way that labor-intensive tobacco and rice did. Cities such as New York and Philadelphia also had the largest Black populations.

On the other hand, the Chesapeake (Maryland and Virginia) and low country of the Carolinas had planters and farmers who raised tobacco, rice, and indigo. Small farms only had one or two slaves (and often none), but the majority of the southern enslaved population lived on plantations. Large plantations frequently held more than 20 enslaved people, and some had hundreds. Virginian Robert “King” Carter held more than 1,000 people in bondage. As a result, in the areas where plantations predominated areas of the South (especially South Carolina), enslaved people outnumbered white colonists and sometimes by large percentages. This led to great fear of slave rebellions and measures by whites, including slave patrols and travel restrictions, to prevent them.

Robert “King” Carter was one of the richest men in all of the American colonies. He owned more than 1,000 slaves on his Virginia plantation. Anonymous. Portrait of Robert “King” Carter. Circa 1720. Painting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Carter_I#/media/File:Robert_Carter_I.JPG

The regional differences of slavery led to variations in work patterns for enslaved people. A few Northern enslaved people worked and lived on farms alongside slaveholders and their families. Many worked in urban areas as workers, domestic servants, and sailors and generally had more freedom of movement than on southern plantations.

Blacks developed their own cultures in North and South. Despite different cultures and languages brought from Africa and regional differences within the colonies, a strong sense of community developed especially in areas where they had greater autonomy. Slave quarters on large plantations and urban communities of free blacks were notable for the development of Black culture through resistance, preservation of traditions, and expression. The free and enslaved Black communities kept in conversation with each other to transmit news and to hide runaways.

Different systems of work developed on Southern plantations. One was a “gang system ” of labor in which planters or their overseers drove groups of enslaved people, closely watched their work, and applied physical coercion to compel them to work faster. They also worked in the homes, laundries, kitchens, and stables on larger plantations.

On the massive rice plantations of the Carolinas, enslaved people were often assigned tasks and allowed to stop working when they reached their goals. The “ task system ” could foster cooperation and provide incentives to complete their work quicker. Plantation slaves completed other tasks including cooking, cleaning, laundry, childcare, and worked as skilled artisans.

The treatment and experience of enslaved people was rooted in a brutal system but could vary widely. Many slaveholders were violent and cruel, liberally applying severe beatings that were at times limited by law or shunned by society. Others were guided by their Christian beliefs or humanitarian impulses and treated their slaves more paternalistically . Domestic work was often easier but under much closer scrutiny than fieldhands who at times enjoyed more autonomy and community with other enslaved people. Slaveholders in New England were more likely to teach slaves to read or encourage religious worship, but enslaved people were commonly restricted from learning to read, especially in the South.

Enslaved people did not passively accept their condition. They found a variety of ways to resist in order to preserve their humanity and autonomy. Some of the common daily forms of resistance included slowing down their pace of work, breaking a tool, or pretending to be sick. Some stole food and drink to supplement their inadequate diets or simply to enjoy it as an act of rebellion. Young male slaves were especially likely to run away for a few days and hide out locally to protest work or mistreatment. Enslaved people secretly learned to read and that allowed them to forge passes to escape to freedom. They sang spirituals out of religious conviction, but also in part to express their hatred of the system and their hope for freedom.

Slaves developed their own culture as a way to bond together in their hardships and show defiance to their owners. This image depicts slaves on a plantation dancing and playing music. Anonymous. The Old Plantation. Circa. 1790. Painting. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Slave_dance_to_banjo,_1780s.jpg

The enslavement of Africans in British colonies in North America developed differently in individual colonies and among regions. But, the common thread running throughout the experience of slavery was injustice. Blacks were denied their humanity and natural rights as they could not keep the fruits of their labor, lived under a brutal system of coercion, and could not live their lives freely. However, a few white colonists questioned the institution before the Revolutionary War.

Comprehension and Analysis Questions

• How did slavery violate an enslaved person’s natural rights?
• How did slavery vary across the 13 British colonies in North America?
• How did Blacks resist their enslavement?

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Origins of the Slave Trade

Why did Africa and Europe engage in the slave trade?

The New York Times

Magazine | the 1619 project, the 1619 project.

AUG. 14, 2019

In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.

Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. black americans have fought to make them true., if you want to understand the brutality of american capitalism, you have to start on the plantation., myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today., america holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some people deserve more power than others., for centuries, black music has been the sound of artistic freedom. no wonder everybody’s always stealing it., ‘i slide my ring finger from senegal to south carolina & feel the ocean separate a million families.’, what does a traffic jam in atlanta have to do with segregation quite a lot., why doesn’t the united states have universal health care the answer begins with policies enacted after the civil war., slavery gave america a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. both still define our prison system., the sugar that saturates the american diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery., a vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions and exclusion, separates black and white america., a re-education is necessary., most americans still don’t know the full story of slavery. this is the history you didn’t learn in school., ‘we are committing educational malpractice’: why slavery is mistaught — and worse — in american schools., the 1619 project continues, the 1619 podcast.

An audio series from The Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery.

Live at the Smithsonian

Watch highlights of a symposium about how history is defined — and redefined — featuring historians, journalists and policymakers.

Reader Responses

We asked you to share photographs and stories of your enslaved ancestors. The images and stories helped paint a picture of a too-often-erased American history.

We asked you how you learned about slavery in school. You told us about degrading role play, flawed lessons and teachers who played down its horrors.

Race/Related

The 1619 Project was conceived by Nikole Hannah-Jones. In this interview, she talks about the project and the reaction to it.

In the N.B.A., the very term “owner” has come under fire, as players, most of whom are black, assert self-determination.

Behind the Scenes of 1619

Since January, The Times Magazine has been working on an issue to mark the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved people arriving in America.

For teachers

Looking for ways to use this issue in your classroom? You can find curriculums, guides and activities for students developed by the Pulitzer Center at pulitzercenter.org/1619 . And it’s all free!

More on NYTimes.com

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