"Slave and Citizen" by Frank Tannenbaum compares the life of slaves in North America to the life of slaves in South America. This was published in 1947. Just to name one example of the differences between their lives; slaves in Latin America could by their way out of slavery through manumission while, the slaves in North America could not. Tannenbaum states that the people who controlled Latin America believed that the slave and master were equal. They came to this conclusion with their belief in Christianity by claiming that God sees everybody as equal. The claim that the Spanish lands in South America believed that the
slave and the master were equal, does not sit very well with me. Slaves and their masters were not equal in the physical life. Masters controlled slaves. If someone has control over someone else they are not equal. If
these people on the island were so religious how can they justify
slavery by saying that they still view the slave as an equal? It's kind
of like, "yeah you are a slave but we see you as an equal so it is not
really that bad". If they truly viewed them as an equal, slavery would
have been gone before it had started. If they were so religious I do no
believe that they would have allowed slavery. Yes, the slaves in South
America did have opportunities to interact with society, such as buying
their own freedom, being in a political office, and so on. Still, just
because they had more rights than slaves in North America, does not
negate the fact that they had slaves in the first place. Did they think
they were better Christians because they treated their slaves better
than Christians in North America? If so, they were just creating an
illusion that prevented them from seeing that slave is not an equal, no
matter who says it is. If Christianity was the proper way to justify
slavery, why don't devout Christians in the present, fight for the right
to own slaves today? Just because the people who have high authority on
the land say that slaves are equal, it does not mean slaves are equal.
Do you think that the slaves felt they were the same to their master?
Blog revised based off comment left by Nico:
Robert, you seem to pose a number of interesting questions and claims
regarding to the text however you may want to consider letting your
audience know what you are referring to. Their needs to be a way you
present the novel or piece of work you are speaking of in this response.
By this I mean a literal mention of the novel, monograph etc. Also
with all the questions you pose to the audience you may want to find a
way to turn them into claims with reference from the text. There are a
lot of questions that you leave unanswered when maybe you can create one
question out of them all and answer them throughout your response.
Some questions you may want to consider answering are:
How were slaves different in America vs. the Spanish Colonies?
What other information from the text may you tie in to create clarity?
How is it exactly that the Spanish Christians justify slavery?
How was Slavery and Christianity related in the Spanish colonies?
You
have great insight on the view of slavery. It was interesting to read
your intake on the enslavement of people and their justification. I
believe you have a good start to working on your perspective of this
text. I liked the way you questioned the writing and threw in
complicated questions to evoke ideas and thinking. I found it most
intriguing when you mentioned the slave and master being equal in the
eyes of Christians. Also the claim you made about an illusion being
created to have slaves believe they were equal. They were both very
important parts of your blog and I suggest working off those claims.
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