The History Slave Trade in South and Modern Slavery - Essay Example

The prosperous slave trade provided the backbone for the South to develop and become prosperous prior to the Civil War. The internal slave trade led to the establishment of the Cotton Kingdom and contributed to its eventual demise by making slave property too valuable for the South to surrender (Deyle, 2005). Fearing further economic ruin, the slave-owning class in Virgina seceded and formed its own confederacy when it realized that its slave chattel was seriously in danger of being eliminated (Deyle, 2005). The slave trade continued in the upper and lower South areas. The slave-exporting states such as Virginia engaged in adversarial relationships with slave-importing states in their roles of seller and buyer. Moreover, as the slaves went farther south, the lower South states deduced that the upper South was beginning to change its perspective on slavery. This difference provoked a deep debate over the reopening of the African slave trade. (Deyle, 2004) The areas of the Deep South saw that new imports would allow Virginia to remain a loyal slave state. However, Virginia did not want newly-arrived slaves to diminish the value of its existing human property. Perceiving that slavery was under attack and fearing the loss of Virginia to the free states, the lower South decided to seced. The Deep South forced Virginia into secession. At that time, Virginia had no desire to deprive itself of the revenues from the domestic slave trade. Southern cotton supported the textile mills of England and the American North. Market forces dominated the growth and traffic of slave trade. Slave traders were demanding entrepreneurs who were fully absorbed in a highly competitive business" (Deyle, 2005). Slave traders acted as conduits of market values into the South, who then paved the way to consumerism and speculation and enhanced modern business practices to the other regions. Slaveholders denied that they sold slaves willingly and insulated themselves from complicity in the human traffic. (Deyle, 2004). The slave trade has myriad dimensions. Southern farmers, planters, and speculators carried their human chattel with them whenever they move from Alabama to Virginia. Moreover, many slaveholders wanted to increase their enslaved workforces. The experience of being sold to slave traders and to a landowner was the most soul-rending experience most African Americans endured, aside from bodily punishments. An ex-slave Ben had recounted to interviewer Mary White Ovington in 1910 that every fall, the slaves would be sold in the same way that cattle was sold. Slaveholders would transfer them from one place to another as if they were mules or horses. Families would be split without consideration for husbands, wives and children. Those who had been sold to new masters never knew what to expect and they never had an inkling of what type of new master they would encounter in their new plantation. (Jewett and Allen, 2004). When Samuel Townsend, a slave owner from Virginia, needed more slaves, he bought them from traders in Richmond. This movement of slaves from the Upper South to the Gulf states presented possibilities for profitable speculations. Thousands of slaves born in Virginia showed up in Alabama during from 1820s to 1840s. Groups of slaves moved from Virginia and the Carolinas each fall. Montgomery was Alabama's largest slave sale site. Blacks being transported but encumbered by foot irons and chains were a pitiful sight on the roads. After railroads had been built in Montgomery with the Upper South slave markets, particularly during the 1850s, more traders and speculators used the railroads to move their human cargo (Jewett and Allen, 2004). Uncle Tom's Cabin converted the North to the cause of the slave. The book brought home to the heart of the North, and of the world, that the slave was a man. The book was instrumental in conveying the fact that the slave is linked to mankind by human love and aspiration and anguish but devoid of the rights of man. (Merriam, 1970). Uncle Tom's cabin set forth an organized wrong, which the North sought to remove. The book's effect in the North was to deepen the conviction of the wrong of slavery, and foster the desire to eradicate it. Fanny Kemble recounted the varying intolerable conditions of the slaves and their families in a Georgia plantation. She witnessed and felt the constant, vivid wrong of living on the unpaid labor of servants. These special wrongs were constant. She described the lacrimonious parting of a family of slaves. The slaves suffered the brutal inhumanity of allowing a man to strip and lash a woman. She had to maintain in luxury the two idle young men who were the main owners of the plantation. Kemble thought that the female labor which was exacted from these slaves, and the corporal chastisement they are forced to endure were abhorrent to any man. She also observed that the physical hardships fell to the women. In general, the slaves led an animal existence. They suffered the evils of an unrequited labor. They were kept in profound ignorance and they moved with an element of fear and uncertainty. Kemble recounted that a South Carolinian had said to her, "Abolition is impossible because every healthy negro can fetch US $1000 in Charleston market at this moment." (Kemble, 1863). John Calhoun viewed slavery as a positive good for the Union. He stated that the slaves in slave-owning areas enjoy a better life compared to when they are left to fend off by themselves. He asserted that the blacks are in a better condition than the tenants of the poor houses in the civilized portions of Europe. He stated that an old and infirm slave under the kind care of his master and mistress is better that a forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in his small house. As slavery intensified in the South, free speech slowly disappeared. The leaders of the Southern states criminalized any form speech that fostered discontent or insurrection among slaves or free blacks. In addition, the southern policymakers interpreted the laws and applied them to people who circulated anti-slavery literature to whites. The South became a closed society on the subject of slavery. (Merriam, 1970) Modern slavery, had it been permitted up to the present day in the US, would have made the South more prosperous and more wealthy compared to the North. If there had been no civil war in the United States, the slave traders in the South can easily fetch US $10,000 dollars currently from every able-bodied slave born or residing anywhere in the Southern territories. Considering that there are 20 million African Americans in the South, the modern slave trade would yield enormous sums of money for slave owners and traders at the expense of a great majority. The slaves would be as expensive as mineral resources like gold and silver and even petroleum. The US would be nicknamed as "The Slave Capital of the World". There would be a Slave Index in the US and Britain to track the international trade of blacks among sovereign territories. Standard and Poor and Fitch will have a specific ratings figure for slave holding companies and individuals together with the major corporations of the world. Modern slavery would be characterized by blacks working in no pay, no promotion, no benefits and low skilled occupations. Worker rights will be totally unheard of. Barack Obama would be washing windows at the Oval Office while John McCain is inside the Oval Office working at his health reform program. Michelle Obama would be watching over some white babies. Oprah would be an announcer at a WalMart store and Condoleeza Rice would be picking corn in her native Alabama. She would not be able to practice her mastery of the Russian language with Soviet Prime Minister Putin. Colin Powell would be driving a bus in Washington DC. Will I am, the famous rapper would be a newspaper boy with an excellent rapping ability. His best audience will be the blacks in the neighborhood. Kofi Annan would be toiling in the fields of his hometown. Blacks, men and women, would be toiling in call centers, day care centers, social centers, hospitals, schools and medical transcription facilities. Their black children will serve as chaperones and play things of the white children to school. These service facilities will chalk up astronomic profits and revenues as the cost of labor, regardless of the total number of hours rendered, would be zero. The slave owners and traders will be richer than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined. Laziness will develop like a plague among the white people as they relie on a coterie of servants and servants' family members to do their everyday work and duties in the home. The children of the white men will be even more lazy as they can only move their fingers and say something and that simple task is fulfilled at once. If modern slavery had been continued, the real measure of true wealth will not lie in the stockmarket and financial markets but in the slave trade market in modern Montgomery. The volume of slave trade would be tremendous. Boeing 747s air jets would fly in new slave arrivals from Africa and the Middle East by the thousands each day. Immigration officers would be processing files of new people. Slave owners will jostle to find the best body and features to take home. To manage the huge human traffic, there would be a slave processing facility and release area in Guantanamo Bay manned by an all-white Marine Company. Online biddings can be posted with the photos and videos of the slaves. Online trade auction will be held regularly. In the industrial setting, the blacks would be working in robot-filled car manufacturing factories and computer manufacturing facilities. In the transportation sector, the blacks would be driving electric trains. In the communications sector, the slaves will be monitoring websites, cellular phones and Blackberry electronic equipment. A Black Airlines specifically for slaves will govern the internal transportation, distribution, and relocation of huge numbers of African men, women, and children, and their descendents, within the United States. An all-black CNN will be flashed every single hour of the day. Successful black sportsmen will be boxers who will fight for their white masters. Had the modern slave trade been continued to the present day, the areas of the South will register the highest per capita income, even exceeding China and Japan by as much as one thousand percent. The presence of cheap and free labor would render hard work redundant for slave owners. The slave trade will open up related financial and non-financial businesses. The slave owners will enjoy healthy profits and healthy bodies unused to hard work. References: Deyle, Steven. 2005. Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Kemble, Fanny. 1863, A Residence on a Georgia Plantation. (New York: Harper Brothers. Merriam, George. 1970. The Negro and the Nation: A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement. New York: Haskell House. Jewett, Clayton and John Allen. 2004. Slavery in the South: A State-By-State History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Read More