Slave Trade: Are You Ever Truly Free?

For Example, slaves were forced to work several hard labor jobs without pay. Many slaves had to go through the fear of being sold and torn apart from their families. Even children were auctioned off and torn apart from their families at early ages. Some children were sold as an act to punish their mother or father. Not only did slaves not have equal right, but they also could not get legally married to their significant others. Then you had the ‘free blacks’ who were former slaves that had been emancipated by their master or decedents of free blacks. Free blacks were able attain property, get an education, and move around as they pleased. Although free blacks escaped the harsh conditions of slavery, they still had to face the white racism that came their way. As more and more whites believed that slavery was the answer to the race problem that was going on around them, they constantly became more suspicious of free

In some cases, they were forced to sign labor contracts due to not being able to find a job. The labor contract would require the Freedmen to live on the property, work long hours, and request permission to leave the property. Therefore, they were not truly free and did not have equal rights as promised in the 14th

The only big difference that happened when they became “free” was that no one would buy or sell them, they were still treated as if they were inferior. ( Doc B ) The man in document c was talking about how the only actual reward of being free is being able to claim that you’re free.

The United States was not truly a “land of the free” during the period from colonial times to the Civil War. During this time, the United States was not in a good place concerning freedom. Slavery was a big and debated issue, the Dred Scott Decision caused much controversy, and made many people question their country’s freedom, and the American Revolution took place between the colonial times and the Civil War. These three huge events in history made people during that time question their independence, and it is still a widely wondered question today. Freedom will always be debated widely among the people of America, but it is obvious that the United States was not free during this time.

The definition of freedom depends entirely on how the phrase “freedom from…” ends. Perhaps a most straightforward understanding of freedom is the laissez-faire emphasis on limiting the power of government to interfere in economic and social matters. In this state of absolute freedom, however, inequalities exist between people, so that freedom from a controlling government does not imply individuals’ freedom of contract, movement, legal protection, equal rights through citizenship, or political voice. In light of the persistence of slavery in the US through the 19th century, freedom as an individual’s legal status separated people who could be citizens from people who were lifelong slaves. Even among legally free people, economic

To be free means you have freedom and certain rights without anyone interfering with you. You can also do things at your own will. However, during Reconstruction African Americans were not free because whites abused the fact that they had rights and would overpower them. One example is the Ku Klux Klan.

Comparing characters, from two different passages, makes it easier to understand the passage more. In the passage, "An Account from the Slave Trade: Love Story of Jeffrey and Dorcas", it talks about Jeffrey, a slave, who want his beloved Dorcas to be bought by his master. The second passage,"Wesley Harris: An Account of Escaping Slavery", it about Wesley Harris and his goal to run away to Gettysburg. These two main characters, Jeffrey and Harris, have a lot of characteristics in common and multiple characteristics that are completely different.

America from the colonial days to the Civil War era was not the land of the free. Many groups in America were not treated equal to their peers. African Americans were the prime example of unequal treatment. African Americans were almost always treated as less than any American citizen, whether they lived in the North or the South. Women were also treated almost exactly the same as slaves. They did all the housework and barely had any rights at all. America, at that time, was clearly anything other than the land of the free.

Throughout history freedom has had many different meanings and definitions; based on race, gender, and ethnicity. According to the dictionary freedom means the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint (“freedom” def. 1). Freedom may seem like something given to everyone however it was something workers had to fight for. Not everyone believed that workers’ rights needed to be changed, which led to a long battle between workers, employers and the government. To the working class people freedom meant making higher wages, having regulated hours, workable conditions and the right to free speech.

After the Civil War the freedman were not truly free. The definition of freedom is the power, or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraints. After the Civil War the slaves were considered free, but they were not treated accordingly. For the whites to still have power over the black's and to keep them in order the new laws started coming out so they don’t try and overpower the whites. In Alabama the new laws Governing the slaves, in Mississippi the Black Codes, and in various states the Jim Crow laws.

Freedom in colonial America was defined to be independent from the control of another person or institution, both politically and economically. Politically, this meant that people should have the right to self-government, completely avoiding any form of tyrannical oppression. Economically, freedom translates to being supported by the labor of others, or to work for only oneself. By law, only men had the potential to be free since women and children were denied both political and property rights. In addition, the

There is no doubt that the United States was built upon the hard work of Black-American slaves, referred to at the time as bondpeople, who were the main labor force in producing important American exports, such as cotton or tobacco, which were, in fact, the backbone of the American economy during that time. Due to bondpeople’s overall importance in keeping the United States the powerhouse that it was, the domestic slave trade was a value market that “‘was roughly three times greater than the total amount of all capital, North and South combined, invested in manufacturing, almost three times the amount invested in railroads, and seven times the amount invested in banks’”(23). In “‘In Pressing Need of Cash,’” Daina Ramey Berry, a professor for the Departments of History and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas, looks at a fifteen year period, from 1850-1865, of the economic factors of the domestic slave trade. Berry uses Steven Deyle’s findings in his study, "Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life” which examined both the "long-distance interstate trade" and the extensive local or "intrastate" trade of enslaved males and females, who were priced differently depending on their perceived market value (23). With Deyle’s findings, Berry specifically discusses the relationships among gender, age, skill, or type of sale and how those factors, generally, determined the priced paid of enslaved workers.

The two majors drivers that led to the transatlantic slave trade was the European desire for the agricultural products of the Americas and the need for laborers to work the land in the Americas. All participants, besides for the slaves, benefited from the trading.

In this context, the word, "free", is defined as being not enslaved. Also, it is broken into three parts, which are political freedom, economic freedom, and social freedom. In the North, free blacks had restricted political, economic, and social freedom. Free blacks in the North had limited political freedom-the right to vote or hold office.

Many people dream of being able to live the American Dream and sadly, many people fall in the wrong hands and get cheated on a fake American dream. Although, America is always advertised as “The Land of the Free” slavery is still going on and no one seems to be aware of it or concerned about it. Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter talk about slavery in The United States, in their article, Slavery In The Land of the Free. In this article, Bales and Soodalter talk about how slavery is still happening in the country, but in many different ways. Bales and Soodalter use stories, statics, and comparisons of every slavery case there is in America. However, most of the stories they told were about Hispanics being in slaved, and did not really include stories of other races