Learning about James Madison and the time where slavery was ever-growing and popular, I think of how hypocritical they were. We had an entire revolution in order to promote a "freer" country; only to turn around and enslave people from another country.
I understand that it was expected, but trying to break away from the overbearing British can be compared to slaves attempting to gain their freedom. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and many others involved in the American Revolution owned slaves. Although Wulf points out that some slave quarters were very nice, she continues to say that this is not because they were worried about the well-being of their slaves, but rather, how the quarters looked with their landscape.
Even when some slaves did gain their freedom, Madison pointed out that they were "regarded every where as a nuisance". It was insisted that slaves were better off being enslaved than being freed. In a way, this could have absolutely been how the British viewed the future Americans. We were definitely a nuisance after attempting to gain freedom, and eventually doing so, and I'm sure the British believed that we were better off under their control.
In the same way, I'm sure many slave owners at this time would lose lots of money if freeing their slaves, similarly to how the British lost money when those in America freed themselves from British control. So, as I've clearly showed, gaining our freedom from England was similar to the want of slaves to want freedom from us. Later, as we know, they did gain their freedom; however, it's strange to consider that so many people accepted slavery as the norm in a time when we had only recently gained freedom, ourselves
No comments:
Post a Comment